


In Azeroth

by Valkrez



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alliances, Awkward Romance, Friendship, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3641505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkrez/pseuds/Valkrez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the world of Azeroth was actually affected by a player's actions, what would be the result? </p><p>A series of short stories revolving around the warrior Valoria as she explores Azeroth</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fermir

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Azeroth or have any affiliations whatsoever with Blizzard and the Warcraft franchise. This work is a fan project and nothing more.

The thin mountain air of Dun Morogh was so crisp that it burnt Valoria's nose as she inhaled, and when she breathed out she snorted mist like some smoldering wyrm. Grumbling, she pulled her scarf to just below her eyes but the cold remained; it had seeped through her steel armor and into her very bones. Step after grueling step she pushed on through the white drifts, some as high as her thighs, the snow entering every nook of her armor and threatening her with rust. Overhead, the sky was growing dim and she knew that if she didn't find her way back to a road by nightfall, she was as good as dead in this frozen wilderness. She had with her the supplies to make camp, but the wood in these forests was too frosted to catch, and her best bet would be a cave- provided it wasn't already harboring some other foul creature.

The woman was just debating her options when a sharp crack broke through the snowy stillness, bringing her hazel-green eyes to the east.

'Gunfire,' she thought to herself and squinted through the pine trees. The shot sounded close, but in these mountains echoes played terrible tricks and she knew better than to trust her ears too thoughtlessly. She stood still, considering, when another shot sounded and she was sure this was from just on the other side of the treeline. Tightening her hold on her pack, she took off towards the sound, urging her tired legs through the powder. Once in the trees she could hear a shout and the sounds of some enraged beast, bellowing its fury. She broke from the forest into a dazzling clearing of virgin snow, on the other end of which she could see a gray mountain bear rolling and clawing at a snow leopard, which was attacking with brazen disregard. Valoria caught her breath, watching, when suddenly the bear reared up in a moment of vigor and slammed its great paw against the leopard's body, sending the cat several yards into the snow, where it did not move again.

“Bara!” A voice screamed and another gunshot fired, this one hitting the bear in its shoulder. Valoria searched out the owner of the voice and finally saw, just across from the bear, a black-maned dwarf aiming a blunderbuss at the creature. The dwarf drew his aim and pulled the trigger again but only the hollow sound of an empty chamber sounded back at him. The bear did not understand the click of the gun but it knew the smell of the dwarf's sudden fear and, emboldened by it, it roared and charged.

Valoria moved with the instinctive speed of a warrior and reached behind the small of her back to pull her right-handed axe, Haft, from its sheath and with a practiced swing of a her muscled arm she pitched it end over end at the beast; the blade bit deeply into the bear's haunch, stalling its charge and turning it round to face her.

Valoria flung off her bag and woolen cloak and charged, her left-handed axe firm in her grasp as she raced towards the creature. The bear made for her as well, his iron-colored hackles raised like a legion's banner, his maw wide to show hooked teeth that would make a lesser man tremble, but just as the warrior and bear met, Valoria rolled to her left. The bear tried to follow after her, raising his paw to beat her away as he had the leopard, but all his meaty weight fell onto his injured shoulder and with a yaw of surprise he stumbled. Valoria stood from her roll as fluidly as she had fell into it and with all her might she brought the axe head down into the bear's neck, chopping halfway through it. She roared as she wrenched the axe head free and brought it down again, this time severing the monstrous head once and for all. The body collapsed, steaming, into the snow and Valoria stood over her kill with grim glory.

“By the Makers!” A voice swore and she looked over to see the dwarf, staring at her in unabashed awe.

Valoria grinned. “Well met, master dwarf.”

The dwarf continued to stare from her to the bear, thunderstruck, until he finally seemed to come to some conclusion and smiled back. “I don' know who ye are or where the fel you came from lass, but by the Light I'm glad to see ye,” his gaze turned to where the snow leopard had fallen and he dropped his blunderbuss. “Bara,” he ran towards the the cat, his thick dwarf legs breaking through the snow with an ease that Valoria envied. She followed behind him and saw that the leopard was breathing, but shallowly. The dwarf cradled the cat's head in his lap with a tenderness that such callused hands would not have been thought to have and crooned to her.

“Will she be all right?” Valoria asked kindly. She knew herself the love between a person and their pet and could imagine the dwarf man's angst over his friend.

He hesitated. “I cant quite say, she needs care fast an' she cant walk like this. I'll need to make camp.”

Valoria looked around them. “I'm sorry, friend, but I don’t know that we can make camp in this frozen wild.”

The dwarf looked up at her and smiled grimly, his black beard and hair lined in snow. “Ha, spoken like a human. Help me lift her now under those trees.”

Valoria sighed to herself and bent to help him, careful to not jostle the great cat too badly. The leopard's body was soft under Valoria's hands and she squinted up at her with one golden, intelligent eye. Valoria and the dwarf got under the cover of the trees and he turned then to his pack, clearly tossed aside when the bear had charged. From it he pulled a spade head and a short staff and quickly screwed the two together, then tossed it to Valoria.

“Here lass, get to diggin. Pile the snow up high 'round us. It'll keep in the heat. Try to hit rock if'n you can.”

Valoria wordless went to, unwilling to turn away the advice of a mountain dwarf, and started to clear for them a small circle. Meanwhile, the dwarf continued to rummage through his pack. He pulled out a leather satchel of dry kindling, which he gathered in the center of the cleared space Valoria was making. He then turned to the nearest tree with a hunting knife and, turning it flat, started to scrape off the pine bark. Valoria watched him curiously.

“The wood underneath'll catch,” he explained over his shoulder, as if reading her thoughts. “Now look in me pack fer a tuaren horn, but be careful wit it.”

“Are you always so demanding?” Valoria grinned as she turned to riffle through his bag. Tucked into a side pocket was the twisted horn, which she removed carefully. Looking into the hollow she could see an ember sitting in a bed of straw and dust, quietly glowing.

“Only when my toes are turning black,” he answered her and knelt by his pile of kindling with a handful of large wood chunks. “Here now, lay that ember in the kindlin and start findin' me some branches.”

Valoria did as she was told and after ten minutes or so they had a small fire burning as strongly as any camp blaze. They stacked a tall pile of frosted logs near the flame to dry and Valoria went to retrieve her own gear. When she returned there was a camp kettle of melting snow sitting by the fire and the dwarf was diligently wrapping silken bandages around the leopard's chest. When she approached, the cat made a weak growl at her but did not try to move.

“How is she?” Valoria asked, opening up her backpack for her own camp supplies. She pulled a canvas sheet out to sit on and clipped her cloak back around her shoulders.

“I think she's broken a rib or two, and her paw needs rest, but she'll pull through. She's a tough one,” he said with affection, petting the cat's neck. He looked back up at Valoria and smiled a toothy smile.

“Name's Fermir Thunderbrew, from Kharanos, and this lovely girl is Bara,” and he stuck his hand out towards her. Valoria wrapped her hand around his forearm in a comrade's shake.

“Valoria. Well met, master Thunderbrew. You come from a line of damned fine brewers.”

Fermir threw his head back in a great cackle. “Oh aye that I do, an' its always good to meet a human what knows her ale.”

“It's a miserable hermit that doesn't know a Thunderbrew stout on his tongue.”

Fermir pulled an ornately embossed flask from his bag and unscrewed the lid. “True words, my friend,” he took a swig and handed the flask to her. “I cant thank ye enough for yer help today. They'd be findin my body in the spring melt if you hadn't come along.”

Valoria took the flask and the heady smell of Thunderbrew ale filled her nose, warming her even from the smell of it. “You've saved my skin this night as well, master dwarf. I don’t think I could have lived out the night in this cold on my own.”

“Well if'n ye don’t mind me pryin, what brings you out on the mountain then?”

Valoria took a long drought, feeling the beer fill her empty stomach and just as quickly her head. “I got caught in a blizzard this morning, and by the time it cleared I was so turned around I barely knew which way was up. I'd lost the road and had been trying to find it all day when I heard you on your hunt. Speaking of,” she nodded over her shoulder at the bear carcass. “What do you plan to do with your kill?”

Fermir grabbed his hunting knife and stood up. “Well, firstly I'm going to make dinner out of it.”

The Dun Murogh sun had finally set when Fermir pulled the bear steaks from the fire and plopped one each on his and Valoria's field plates. Valoria dug into the meat with gusto, thankful for the seasoning Fermir had rubbed into it as it sat over the fire.

“So,” Fermir began, wiping meat grease from his beard. “Since ye don’t seem inclined to tell me where your comin' from, do ye mind tellin me where you're headed to?”

Valoria smirked at the dwarf's perceptiveness. “Ironforge. I'm of a mind to spend the winter drunk on dwarven brew and warm in the mountain's forge.”

Fermir threw his head back into another great laugh. “That's a fair 'nough reason fer me. Why don’t ye help me with Bara and the kill tomorrow and I'll show ye the way home to Kharanos? Then we can both get drunk and warm and tell the whole village how we thwarted this beast!” And he laughed again.

Valoria took another swig of ale and nodded. “Aye, that sounds a good plan to me!”

The next morning Valoria rose achy and a slight hungover but alive and after a short breakfast of left-over bear steak and cheese she cheerfully helped Fermir in chopping down branches to turn into makeshift stretchers for Bara and the bear carcass. Fermir skinned the bear pelt with practiced ease and rolled it at the top of his stretcher, then stacked the cuts of meat below it. He wanted to take the head but Valoria argued that they would be weighed down enough as it was and besides, it was too badly butchered to be mounted. Grumbling, the hunter settled on plucking the beast's fangs and gave one to Valoria as a keepsake. Then, with Bara comfortably settled on her stretcher, they started on their trek northward toward the village of Kharanos.

Fermir found the road easily and by mid day the two pulled their stretchers into the village square. Kharanos sat settled amongst the gentle hills of Dun Morogh, the snow topping its stone rooftops, where chimney stacks let out columns of piney hearth smoke. The village was small, made up mostly of the brewery, the forge, and a few homes built in the low, severe dwarven style. Dwarf houses were meant to last centuries and were built downwards into the earth or deep into hillsides rather than upwards like human houses. The master-crafted earth and stone kept the homes warm and simple, and the dwarven folk always felt more at ease beneath the ground. A few miles in the distance rose the great Iron Forge mountain, where the dwarf king's city was carved into the heart of the rock itself.

As they walked through the village, Valoria saw several dwarves standing about on their hefty porches, smoking pipe weed in little more than shirtsleeves, oblivious to the cold wind that made her so miserable. These dwarves waved cheerfully to Fermir and shot his companion curious glances and Valoria had no doubt that her appearance would be something to gossip about in the tavern that evening.

Fermir made straight for the brewery, a long building with three great bronze brewing kettles built right into the wall, spewing a steady stream of opaque vapor.

“'Ome sweet 'ome,” he grinned at Valoria and set down his load. “Lets get Bara inside and warm and we'll come back for the rest.”

Valoria helped him to carry the cat through the door and then down the steps into the common room, where a barmaid with strikingly familiar features glanced up at them from a freshly scrubbed table in surprise, quickly followed by a foul oath.

“Grandad's beard, Fermir. What've ye done now?” The dwarf maid said as she rushed to meet them, looking in concern at Bara's bandages.

“Ach, bit of a run-in with a mountain bear. Nothin' to worry about,” he answered, avoiding her glare and hurrying past her and down another flight of stairs that led off behind the bar. “She'll be right as rain after some rest,” he called behind him then disappeared into the sleeping quarters.

The dwarf woman looked after him with obvious displeasure then turned her eye on Valoria, who had made immediately for the roaring fireplace. She unwrapped her scarf from around her head and chin and let down her long brunette curls, shaking them free of their bounds with a sigh of relief.

“And ye. Are ye a friend of my fool brother's?” She asked, her hands on her hips.

Valoria looked at her over her shoulder, her hands palms-out towards the blaze. “Aye, we crossed paths on the mountain," she answered in her easiest way and flashed a small grin. "Could I trouble you for a drink?” She reached for a money sack on her belt but the barmaid waved at her.

“Oh none of that, I wont be chargin' a friend fer a pint. I'm Gwen Thunderbrew, Fermir's elder sister.”

Valoria stuck out her thawed hand. “Valoria. It's a pleasure to be in the Thundrewbrew distillery, I confess I've walked a ways to be here.”

Gwen glowed with pleasure at the praise. “Well I best make sure your walk wasn’t fer naught, shouldn’t I?” And she turned towards the low stone bar that stood across the entire left wall, behind which were wooden casks marked in dwarven script.

“Oi, what's the news then?” A voice sounded from the top of the stairway and Valoria and Gwen both looked up to see a crowd of dwarves making their way into the common room. “I saw that Fermir's cat was all bandaged up.”

“Oh aye,” Gwen answered and began filling several tankards with frothy ale and sliding them across the counter to the newcomers. “Seems to have gotten himself in a fix yesterday. I knew somethin' had gone wrong when the fool didn' show fer dinner.”

“Hah, is a damn fool that misses your dinner, Gwen dear,” a blond dwarf man leered at Gwen over his drink but Fermir's thunderous face appeared from the other stairway and the blond dwarf quickly hid his wolfish grin in his cup.

“Is a damn fool what thinks he can sashay my sister without a quick knock on his head,” Fermir growled before Gwen rightly knocked the backside of Fermir's black mane.

“Is a damn fool brother what thinks he can have a say over who sashays me to begin with!” She scolded. “Now tell us what happened and how you came upon yer pretty friend here.”

Valoria, barely suppressing her laughter at the display of family affection, took a seat at a long stone table and smiled in greeting at the dwarves, who were quickly waving and introducing themselves and taking seats as well, obviously ready for a good story.

“Ach, well, there I was,” Fermir started, standing in front of the fireplace to face the room of attentive faces. “ Alone in the mountains with naught but my gun, me knife, and my trusty Bara at my side.”

Valoria snorted and stuck her face back into her tankard. She should have remembered that any good dwarf loved his story-telling almost as much as he loved his ale. Thankfully, Gwen had thought to lay out some cheese, salami and bread and by the time that Valoria appeared in Fermir's tale, she had eaten a sandwich and a half.

“And then, out of the very trees themselves it seemed, Valoria here appeared like some forest spirit sent to save my poor arse! She took one look at that foul bear and chucked an axe right into his back! Then the thing turns to look at her, its eyes wide with madness, and he takes off at her. Now, I wouldn’t have believed to hear this if I hadn’t been blessed to see wit my own two eyes, lads and lasses. The fool girl jumps up and runs AT the bear!” Fermir threw up his hands in an exaggeration of his own disbelief and Valoria chuckled. “She raises up her other axe at the last second, dodges to the side, and then chops off the thing's head in one stroke!” Fermir followed through all the actions as though he had been the one to make the killing blow and the audience broke into cheers and gasps of awe as he finished his tale, miming the dead bear. “I tell ye all, I aint never heard of the like.”

“Are ye sure you aint half-dwarf, girl? Cuz that's some Khaz Modan spirit you have!” One red-bearded dwarf laughed and clapped her on her back, causing her to cough into her tankard.

“Gwen, get this girl more ale, she deserves a barrel of Thunderbrew for that one.”

“Charging at a bear, who would do such a thing!”

“She probably thought she was saving the bear from Fermir's ugly face!”

“Ha!”

Valoria found herself laughing uproariously with the rest as jokes were made and some started to retell the whole thing to each other, adding their own gestures and expressions of Fermir's fear to the story. Eventually she was able to get Fermir's ear and she whispered, “One chop, was it?”

The dwarf shrugged. “Eh, sounded better that way I figured,” he said with a well-meant wink and Valoria grinned back.

“So what'll ye do now, Valoria?” Gwen asked, making a round about the table with a full pitcher.

Valoria shrugged and leaned back into her seat, her legs stretched out beneath the table. “To Iron Forge I suppose, where its warm and there's plenty to drink.”

“Pshaw,” the blond dwarf waved away her suggestion. “Stay here, in Kharanos. It's plenty warm and we've got an endless supply of the best brew in all the Eastern Kingdoms!”

“In all Azeroth!” Someone else declared and the whole table shouted in approval.

Valoria laughed again and whetted her lips, considering. Finally she shrugged. “All right then,” she raised her tankard. “To Kharanos!”

“To Kharanos!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first installment of a story I wrote (as a way to relax) several years ago. I thought it might be fun to actually add it to a public site however. I hope you enjoy~


	2. Milo

Valoria found that Kharanos was indeed a good place to winter, filled as it was with hospitable dwarves and husky, amber ale. For months she rented one of the spare rooms below the distillery, paying every week in fat gold coins, which made her Gwen Thunderbrew's favorite guest. No one asked her where the money came from and she never mentioned it herself, but it became assumed among the village that the warrior's pockets were quite deep. Fermir Thunderbrew and Valoria found each other to be great company and while Bara healed, they spent much of their time in trading stories and working together in the distillery, where Valoria learned many but not all of the secrets of the brewing clan.

Because Iron Forge city was so close, Valoria would hitch a ride with one of the villagers on clear days from time to time and would then spend hours in the Library of the Explorer's League, a dwarf-based guild accredited with much of the archaeological explorations across Azeroth over the past decade. Whenever Fermir would ask what it was she was looking for in the vault of books however, she would only shrug and maneuver around his question as she did any inquiry about herself.

Aside from his brewing, Fermir was also an accomplished hand at leather-working and he took time to show her some of his craft: tooled bracers of soft leather and finely stitched belts tanned from boars hide. He even took the mountain bear pelt they had brought back and treated it into a fine throw, which he gave to Valoria with false modesty, professing that he'd never be able to sell it without a head. Valoria slept in the skin every night and was often seen in the common room with it flung over her shoulders with pride and before long she picked up the nickname 'Bearmane'.

The story of the hunt and Valoria's miraculous appearance just as the bear's wrath came down upon Fermir's head was a popular one and many jokes were made at poor Fermir's expense because of it. The hunter took them in stride though, surprising for a dwarf, and only ever claimed his good fortune in Valoria happening upon him when she did. In this manner, the biting Khaz Modan winter waned and by the time of the first snow melt, Valoria could feel the ache for adventure return to her rested muscles.

 

It was an early spring morning when Valoria sat at her customary spot by the fire, her legs propped on a low ottoman and her twin axes Haft and Hew resting on a leather pelt over her lap while she diligently applied grease to the scythe-like blades. The axes were just under twenty inches in length with down-swept, thorium heads and picks on the opposing side of the blades. The staves were blackened wood and each had a solid thorium hand guard in the shape of serpent's tail looping over the leather-bound hilt. Silver inlaid snakes wrapped around either staff before melding into the blades themselves as a gaping-mouthed serpent ready to strike. In the right lighting the blades would gleam a dull blue, proof to the trained eye of the qualities enchanted into the weapons, though what those were, only Valoria knew.

In the chair opposite her, Fermir sat with his long-stemmed pipe protruding from his mouth and a book open before him, Bara curled up content and healthy at his feet. The cat's ear twitched in her sleep and she looked up at the tavern door, a low noise in her throat gathering her master's attention.

A small figure had appeared suddenly in the doorway of the tavern and he rushed down the stairs into the common room, his blue-acolyte robes askew and his dyed-green mohawk disheveled in his obvious agitation.

“Help! I need help!” The young gnome cried and grabbed the nearest dwarf's collar. “I've been robbed! Gather your strongest, we must march upon the thieves at once!”  
“Git off!” The dwarf grumbled and shoved the gnome away from him. “Tell the mountaineer's if'n ye been robbed.”

The gnome looked pleadingly around the room, filled with half-awake dwarf men and women who were just settling into their morning coffee. “The mountaineers said they had better things to worry about, don’t you see?! I must get my treasure back, it is of the utmost importance!”

Valoria, who was watching the gnome with mild interest, raised an eyebrow at the word 'treasure'.

“Who’s robbed you, master gnome?” She demanded shortly. The gnome turned to her with obvious hope.

“Frostmane trolls! A band of them came upon me at dawn and ran off with all that I own, I only barely escaped! Please,” he approached her and took her hand in his two child-sized ones. “Wont you help me? I'll reward you, I swear it.”

Valoria studied the gnome, taking in his young eager features, his fresh green mustaches and his pink eyes which brought to her mind a court jester. “What's your name, lad?”

“Milovich Fergson Temperspark the Fourth, of the Gnomergan Tempersparks, apprentice to Archmage of Azora, Theocritus.”

Valoria smirked at the detail of his title. “Alright then, Milo, I'll help you out.”

The gnome mage's face opened into a grateful smile. “You will? Fantastic! Let's be off at once.”

Valoria nodded. “Aye, give me a minute first to get ready,” and she began to roll away her cleaning tools. Fermir closed his book and caught her eye.

“Off to do good, are ye?”

She shrugged and stood, then languidly stretched her muscular body: the toned body of a predator. “I've been holed up long enough, I think. I'm bored, and nothing cures boredom like a bit of adventure. Why don’t you come along?”

Fermir cocked a thick black eyebrow for a half moment before nodding. “Aye then, I think I will.”

 

A half hour later and Valoria, Fermir, Bara and Milo stood in Kharanos square, their eyes to the south and the mountain wind brushing against their faces, turning their cheeks pink. Valoria was dressed once more in her steel armor, shined and polished to a bright gleam. Her gear was in the Lordaeron fashion, hinting at its age, and she had scrubbed every kink and knob with grease until the plates moved together silently. On her girdle were strapped her axes and she carried a round buckler fixed to her back in lieu of a cloak. She had slicked back and pulled her long brunette curls into a tight braid down the center of her skull and her helmet hung from her belt.

Fermir was tucked into a mix of leathers and a mail shirt, his blunderbuss on his back and mithril slugs lining his girdle. He also wore a cobalt blue cloak with his clan seal embroidered into the cloth and the hood pulled over his wild black hair. Milo had only his acolyte robes, a wool cloak, and a gnarled staff to offer him any protection from the weather and the trolls. Looking him over, Valoria rolled her eyes. She could already see that this would be an interesting foray.

Milo claimed that the frostmane trolls who attacked him had headed southwest and Fermir, who had lived all of his life in the mountains of Khaz Modan, figured that the trolls had made for Frostmane Hold, a bandit cave west from Kharanos. A shorter path would have been across the steep hills that bordered the village but Valoria staunchly refused. Although the weather had warmed, snow still stood a foot or more deep all across Dun Morogh and she was not keen on doing any more cross country than what was necessary, and so they took the road north until it bended west and southwards again, making a 'U' through the mountains. As they walked, Bara ahead of the party with her sensitive nose to the ground and her ears alert for any sign of danger, Milo chattered. Valoria at first found his yammering to be charming but after an hour of hiking his voice was beginning to grate upon her ears.

The story of Milo's life, and that of his father and even grandfather came pouring out of Milo and Valoria, against her will, learned that the Tempersparks were a long line of mages and had been a family of renown in Gnomeregan before the tinker-city had fallen to an invasion of troggs. During the Third War, when Milo was still an adolescent by gnome standards and forbidden to go to battle, his family had fought along with the Alliance in Kalimdor against the demonic forces of the Burning Legion, but in the absence of the gnomes the tinker city became weak and fell, taking with it the wealth of the Temperspark family. 

“So you see, it was my great quest to enter into hallowed Gnomeregan and retrieve that which my father lost in our wretched exodus,” Milo finished grandly, his pink eyes turned westward in the direction of the abandoned city.

“All on your lonesome?” Fermir asked with a wry wink at Valoria.

“Perhaps not, I assume of course that the High Tinker has sent a squadron of our finest to the front in order to take back the city, I'm sure that I can find my place among the ranks.”

Valoria and Fermir shared a swift look between them. “But you don’t know for certain?” Valoria ventured. “Why not ask in Tinker Town, in the Ironforge mountain?”

Milo, walking a step ahead of her, blushed slightly. “Oh,” he said, flustered. “I thought 'why bother with the middle-man', I might as well make straight for the site of the battle itself!”

Valoria frowned slightly but before she could argue the gnome, Fermir put up a hand as signal for them to halt. Ten paces ahead of them, Bara had stopped still in her tracks, her shoulders low and her ears upright.

“We're here,” Fermir said over his shoulder and Valoria crouched down, immediately alert. In front of them was a low, snow capped hill, the tops of trees showing from the other side. Two ribbons of camp smoke wafted ahead of them and Valoria nodded to Fermir, loosening her axes in their sheaths.

“What do we do no-” Milo asked but stopped after a venomous glance from Valoria. She put her finger to her mouth and then pointed at Fermir, who had already started up the hillside. The dwarf laid low as he reached the crest and then looked through the scope of his blunderbuss for several moments. Bara stayed at the bottom of the hill but did not take her eyes from her master. Finally Fermir made his way backwards down the hill and rejoined his companions.

“Two campfires,” he whispered. “But there's only two at each. Just cookin' it looks like. Makers know what they're cookin 'owever,” he snorted. “At any rate, they're armed but barely. I expect the most of them are in the cave itself.”

“How large is the cave?” Valoria asked.

Fermir bit his cheek and sighed. “Not sure, I've never been in there. I've always 'eard it goes back a ways.”

“If your people know these trolls live out here, why do the mountaineers not make a raid on them?” Milo asked, voicing some of Valoria's thoughts.

“'Cuz they got better things to worry 'bout than a few wild trolls in the middle of nowhere,” Fermir growled. Dwarves were not known for taking criticisms well.

“Back to the point,” Valoria cut in quickly. “We need those at the campfire out of the way without alarming anyone inside the cave. Now, if I know much about trolls it's that they love a good bounty. Why don't you let Bara show her colors some and see if any follow her over this hill to us?”

Fermir considered this for a moment, looking at his beloved leopard. “All right then,” he agreed slowly and reached to load his riffle but Valoria placed a hand on his shoulder.

“No, my friend. The riffle would be too loud and I don’t wish to bring out the whole cave upon us,” she looked to Milo. “When they come down the rise I want you to freeze them in their tracks, I'll handle the rest.”

Milo gulped but nodded and Fermir's face turned dark. “And me, what am I to do 'cept sit on my hands?”

“Keep your riffle ready in case things turn for the worse, but other than that, just stay out of my way.”

Fermir glowered even worse but Valoria ignored his pouting and pulled on her half-face helm and drew her weapons, which glinted a slight blue in the noon sun. Fermir turned his attention back to Bara and gave her a quick command to walk to the top of the hill; Bara blinked her golden eyes at him then trudged off through the snow and up the rise, her long spotted tail swaying softly behind her. Valoria wasn’t sure exactly how much of what they said was understood by Bara, but it was clear that she had a sense of what they tried to communicate. She was without a doubt an exceptional animal, and absolutely devoted to Fermir; the leopard followed his slightest word without pause and she was ceaselessly remarkable in both her beauty and her intelligence.

At the top of the hill, Bara paused and looked around, her body posture relaxed as though she were simply a predator secure in her position at the top of the food chain. She stretched and yawned, then started to make her way down the opposite hillside but stopped abruptly, staring ahead of her. Valoria, watching her, took a few steps backwards and waved to the others to follow suite, moving behind a tree trunk just off the road.

Bara swiftly turned and bounced through the snow back towards her master, and after another moment two blue-haired, ice-blue skinned trolls appeared over the rise, weapons in hand. The trolls were tall, gangly creatures that walked crouched, their long arms swinging low at their sides and their two-toed feet bare, even in the snow. Their skin was a motley blue and from their wide mouths erupted long, curved tusks nearly a half foot in length. With mutual determination the troll men hunted after the snow leopard, who disappeared into the trees before them.

As the furthermost troll drew near, Valoria turned from around the tree trunk and swept her axes in an 'X' across her chest and into the troll's face. She felt the blades slicing through tendon and bone and knew her quarry was dead before his body fell into the snow. Not stalling in her momentum, she charged at the second troll, who only had time to gasp in surprise at her and raise up his mace to defend himself but in vain. Valoria bounded at him like a jungle cat, her axes raised over her head and she brought the back facing pikes down into his slopping shoulders. The troll gurgled for a moment, then fell onto his knees, staring up at her as though he still could not comprehend what had happened to him. Valoria wordlessly reached for her axe, Haft, and jerked it out of the troll's body, then swung it round at his exposed neck.

“N-” the troll managed to utter before the warrior severed his mouth from his throat. Valoria dislodged her other axe and hastily swung the two against the snow to shed any loose blood, and then turned back to her comrades.

Fermir was holding his riffle and looking grim but determined, understanding well the cost of the hunt. Milo however looked as though he were about to be sick.

“Stiff upper lip there, mage,” Valoria advised gruffly and the gnome pulled his eyes from the corpses and back to her, nodding meekly.

“The others will wonder whats happened. They'll be coming to investigate.”

“Aye,” Fermir agreed. “No use in trying to cover the bodies, they'll not miss the blood. Best just to wait.”

Valoria nodded and turned to face the hill, but nearly ten minutes passed before she could hear the sound of snow crunching nearby. She crouched low, her body quivering in anticipation of the pounce, and when she saw the whites of the first troll's eyes she charged, pounding up the hill with her axes raised and ready. The troll was taken by surprise but he had the high ground and time enough to draw his crude, wedge-shaped blade; Valoria reached him and swung her right handed weapon high for the troll to block her, and a half moment later she sliced his exposed arm with her offhanded weapon. The troll's sword arm fell uselessly at his side and he stared wide-eyed as she slit his throat with another swing.

The warrior was at the crest of the hill now and she could see that the last troll, ten yards away, was standing astonished in his tracks. She set her predator gaze onto the frostmane and with a low garbled cry he turned on his heel suddenly and made back for the cave.

“Milo,” Valoria hissed over her shoulder but nothing happened. The troll was less than forty yards from the cave entrance now and moving fast.

“Milo!” She roared and a burst of black-violet arcane energy shot through the troll's back and out his chest. The troll paused and fell into the snow.

Valoria turned with a frown and saw the gnome standing a few feet from her, gasping for breath with his hands on his knees.

“S-sorry,” he stammered as she glared at him.

“I thought I told you to freeze their feet in place.”

Milo faked a grin and shrugged apologetically. “Well, I didn't want to drain myself before we got into the cave, right?” And he held up a black-stick wand with a violet gem at its tip. “Wand of Arcana.”

Valoria looked from the gnome to his wand but said nothing. Instead she turned and made her way down the hill and towards the ice cave, leaving the other two to catch pace behind her.

When they reached the troll, Valoria saw that he was still half-alive and without preamp she knelt and cut his throat like the others.

“By the Makers,” Milo gulped and looked at her, appalled. “He was already beaten, must you be so barbarous?”

Valoria grimly reached for a worn bow slung over the troll's shoulder. “He was suffocating and in pain. A warrior doesn’t wish for a slow death, it was a mercy to end him,” she explained simply and took the troll's bow and a quiver of flint-tipped arrows. She stood and handed both to Fermir. “Here, can you use a bow?”

Fermir looked at the crude weapons in obvious disgust. “Aye, but who'd want to?”

Valoria sighed and pushed the bow and quiver into his hands. “Your riffle is still too loud, we still need to try to keep quiet,” she insisted and, grumbling, the dwarf took the bow. “Right then, let's get inside.”

Before them, the cave mouth yawned like a primordial beast, icy stalactites hanging from its jaw in treacherous points and from within, a breeze moaned eerily.

“You know, some trolls believe that they were born from caves,” Valoria said quietly as they entered the cavern. “They believe that caves are the mouths of the earth and from them all life began.”

Fermir grunted. “They'd be half right. The Makers crafted all life from stone in the belly of the world and we were breathed to life by chance. Proof that the dwarves are the wisest race, since only we are smart enough to build our homes in the earth where we were made.”

Valoria smirked to herself. 'And yet once more, the similarities between the races is lost on them all.'

Once inside the cave, Valoria could see that it stretched onwards for quite a ways. The cavern they stood in was tall but not very wide and it was empty save for some stacks of weapons against the walls, and other signs of troll habitation. Trolls were always a ritualistic people and rarely left a surface unadorned if they could manage. Strips of cloth bearing ruins and hieroglyphs hung from the frozen walls, as well as strings of animal bones and beads. In front of them was the entry way to another cave and, weapons at the ready, they started through.

“Do you see your belongings anywhere?” Valoria whispered to Milo as they walked.

The gnome shook his head. “Not yet.”

As they entered into the next cavern the stone roof became steadily icier and the walls were layered in compacted snow. Valoria realized that much of the cave system must have been opened up to the surrounding hills and had been filling with snow for centuries. The next cavern was low and winding, much like a hallway, and at times they were forced to walk one abreast, but they did not come across anyone or any piles of hastily tossed loot. Fat white candles offered light for footing here and there and glinted off the ice walls, making Valoria's head ache with the illusion of movement in the corners of her eyes. The further in they went the more uneasy she became, and even more so when they began to find separating corridors.

“Which way should we follow, master dwarf?” She whispered and Fermir stood carefully regarded the differing corridors when the sound of footsteps from the furthest left entrance made their decision for them. Fermir drew his bow and when the troll appeared from the entryway he fired into its chest before it even noticed them standing in the darkened corridor. Valoria smirked in satisfaction but to her surprise, the troll looked down at his chest and simply plucked the arrow from his leather cuirass before turning his narrowed eyes on them. Valoria leapt immediately at him, her axes upraised, and brought him down in a few quick swings only to see three more trolls following their comrade out of the cavern entrance.

Valoria ducked and swung, twisting her body out of the way of the trolls' treacherous weapons as she sliced out with her own, but even matched against her skill, three opponents in such tight quarters was testing her limits. From either side of her she could see Milo's wild wand blasts and hear the pinging of Fermir's arrows but neither did much to stall these better skilled, armored trolls and by the time Valoria had downed one, another appeared from a separate cave.

“That's it, to fel with this!” Fermir cried and tossed the useless bow aside, then reached behind his back for his trusty blunderbuss.

“No!” Valoria shouted but she was too late; the riffle-fire cracked with a burst of smoke and sulfur, hitting one troll squarely in his bony brow and suddenly the cave seemed to shiver. Valoria risked a glance upwards at the cavern ceiling and gasped, then lunged back towards her comrades. “Get down!”

At her heels came the sheet of ice and snow, pouring from the fissures of the cave walls that vibrated in the wake of the gunshot's peel. Once the first chunks began to fall away they pulled down more and more, filling the cave passage with eon-old snow. It was all Valoria could do to keep her head covered and her breathing steady and after what felt like hours, the thunderous noise of the collapse finally quieted. Valoria warily lifted her head and looked around her, feeling her heart plummet into her stomach.

Both sides of the passage she was in had collapsed in snowfall, making a narrow space approximately ten feet in length imprisoning her, Fermir, Bara, and -

Valoria whipped around.

“Milo? MILO!” She yelled but didn’t see him in the chamber. “Milo!” She called again and turned to the sloping mound of snow, scooping out great arm fulls in her frantic search. Above her she heard a hesitant creak of ice and she stopped, looking cautiously at the cavern roof.

“Valoria?” A small voice called back to her, muffled by the snow. “Fermir, are you two alive?”

Fermir, groaning about his aching knees, came to stand beside her and stared likewise at the wall of ice. Other than a slight bump on his head, the dwarf looked to be all right. Bara was crouched in the middle of the passage, staring around her with wide, frightened eyes.

“Aye, we're alive. Where're you?”

“On the other side, I suppose. The cave-in seemed to scare the trolls off, it's just me here.”

“Well hurry up then and melt this wall down,” Fermir ordered and sat back on his heels.

Valoria heaved a relieved sigh and stood as well, shooting the dwarf a quick glare. “I told you not to use that damn riffle.”

Fermir reddened and scrubbed the back of his neck. “Aye, ye did. I suppose I weren't thinkin.”

'I suppose you weren't,' she seethed but bit her tongue. Now was not the time to quarrel.

“M-melt down the wall?” Milo's muffled voice stammered back to them.

“Yes, damnit. With a fire ball or somethin' mage-like. Hurry up now, the human's getting cold in here.” That was certainly true. With the passageway enclosed in ice, Valoria was starting to shiver under her steel armor.

There was a long pause from the other side, then Milo's voice again, only smaller. “I... I feel I must make a confession, friends. I'm not really... not really a mage.”

“WHAT!?” Fermir's face had turned a sudden ruddy purple and Valoria quickly placed a palm over her eyes. “What do you mean you're not a mage!?”

“I- I'm not a mage, not really. I just let you think that I was. In truth, I'm the only member of the Temperspark line in a thousand years to be born without the gift. I'm sorry, friends.”

Fermir looked ready to start on a savage rant but Valoria cut him off, biting back on cruel words of her own. “Never mind that now, Fermir. Get your spade out quick, we'll have to dig our way out while there's air left.” Now it was Fermir's turn to pause and Valoria looked at him with terrifying calm. “Your spade... Fermir.”

“Heh... I uh, I didn' bring it with me, lass.”

“You damned stupid dwarf, what do you mean!?” She thundered at him, the reins of her temper finally forgotten. “Why would you not bring your spade!?”

“Well I didn' expect a cave in, did I?” He shouted back at her and it was all she could do not to throttle the dwarf where he stood. Instead she took her axe and turned to the wall, using her rage to drive her as she began to dig into the snow.

“I'll not die frozen to death in this tomb with you, you ugly sod!” She shouted as she worked and, fuming, Fermir took her other axe and started to dig as well.

“Nor I with you, you loud mouthed uppity wench!”

“Uhm, friends,” Milo's voice sounded through their angry work. “The-the trolls... I think that they're coming back!”

Valoria could feel the terror in Milo's voice and her stomach dropped even lower, spurring on her efforts upon the wall.

“Keep strong, lad! Use your wand!” Fermir insisted and from the other side of the wall they could both hear Milo's shouting at the trolls to back away, and the whistling noise of his wand firing at whatever lay in the room with him. Valoria took a step away from the snow slope and then with a bellow she began to hack at it with her axe, seeking some fissure through the ice and snow to the other side and to her comrade's defense. When Milo's voice rose into a scream though she knew that her rampage had been spent in vain.

“No!” She cried out but suddenly a cacophonous roaring filled the air and Fermir and Valoria both leapt backwards in bewilderment, Bara making a low cry of distress in her throat.

“What the fel is that?” Fermir demanded, drawing his blunderbuss again.

“I'm sure I don’t want to know,” Valoria answered grimly and readied herself for another fight. From behind the ice wall there was a brilliant orange glow and in a moment the mound melted away as a sudden burst of flame blazed through the snow and ice, blinding them both and singing the hairs of Fermir's beard. When they could open their eyes again, Valoria and Fermir gasped in dismay at what stood before them.

Milo, his green mohawk burnt down to an inch of his roots and his robes scorched black, stood in the cavern entrance, his face covered in soot and his features lit up in overjoyed shock.

“What in the name of the Makers...?” Fermir whispered.

“I... I don’t know what happened!” Milo stuttered. “I.. one moment I was looking death in the face and the next, it was as if my entire body filled up with fire! I think I blew up the whole cave, can you believe it?!”

Fermir's face broke into a slow grin and he rushed at the gnome, grabbing him suddenly into his burly arms and hugging him tightly to his chest. “Ha! Not a mage he says! You little bugger!”

Valoria chuckled and joined them, giving into her relief at seeing Milo alive and mostly unharmed. “Perhaps you just needed a proper catalyst,” she suggested and Fermir let the gnome back onto his feet, where his knees promptly buckled. Fermir caught him under his elbow and let the gnome lean against his taller frame.

“Easy does it,” he warned and Milo shook his head to clear it.

“Sorry, friends. I feel suddenly quite exhausted,” he stared down at his hands. “I still can simply not believe it. I've wanted nothing more my whole life than to become a mage, like my father's fathers. But when I came of age and still no aptitude, I was sure that was the end of it for me. I even left Tinker Town and moved to Elwyn Forest so I wouldn’t embarrass my family any further.”

Valoria gave a knowing nod. “I thought that something was peculiar with your story when you said you were an apprentice at the tower of Azora. None of the servants there may use magic, it feeds Theocritus' fool ego.”

Milo grinned. “Yes, that's right. Oh this'll surely tick the magus off good. I'll probably be expelled from the tower! If I haven’t already...”

“Ye weren’t supposed to leave either, were ye?” Fermir guessed and Milo shook his head, blushing under the dirt on his face.

“No, I wasn’t. I had been given leave to visit my family in Tinker Town but instead, I took it upon myself to venture for Gnomeregan. I thought that perhaps I might be able to find a secret way in, there were several you know. Maybe if I could find a way through and to the family vault, I could bring back some of what we lost in the exodus, and be an asset to the family,” he looked down at his hands again to avoid their eyes and Valoria smirked, looking out at the charred bodies that filled the cavern.

“I'd say that your venturing into Gnomeregan is a very real possibility, Milovich the Fourth; some day. By the looks of this, I think you might have it in you to be one of the great ones,” she turned back to him. “Some day. Now, lets find what we came here for and get back to the village.”

The gnome and dwarf nodded their agreement and once more the three set out into the cavern. They chose to follow the path that the trolls had emerged from, being careful lest any more be hiding within the caves, but in fact the passage was a short one and opened out into another large cavern, which was clearly the main hold of the frostmane. Stacked around the perimeter of the cave were cots and bedding, trunks of belongings, and piles of clothing and leathers. In a circle of ice and snow were kept cuts of raw meats and a steadily burning fire stood in the center of the room.

Milo, feeling strong enough to walk on his own, let go of Fermir's shoulder and started to search around one side of the room while Valoria made promptly for the chests. Most were either empty or filled with strange voodoo materials that she didn’t want to investigate further but she had just opened a rather promising trunk when Milo cried out in glee.

“My possessions!” He shouted and Fermir and Valoria both turned to see him pick up a knapsack from one of the cots, as well as a long, narrow, rose-wood box. On closer inspection, the box's edges were trimmed in plated gold and beautifully carved into the box were flowers and roses twining delicately about one another. Valoria's eyes sparked with wonder to see what lay inside.

“Well, what is it then?” She demanded greedily and Milo grinned up at her, then faced the box towards them both and clicked it open. Inside, carefully stored in specially crafted compartments, were brilliant glass and crystal vials, a pestle and mortar, glass tubing and fine scissors and spoons. It was the most lovely alchemy set that Valoria had ever laid eyes on.

“Its... a potions chest.” Fermir said hollowly.

“That's right, the finest of the Temperspark family heirlooms, and the only thing that we managed to smuggle out of Gnomeregan,” he grinned proudly and despite herself, Valoria smiled back.

“Ye mean to tell me that we all nearly killed ourselves, over a potions chest?” Fermir demanded. “Ye know they sell these just about anywhere!?”

Milo cocked his head to the side as if confused and Valoria burst into tired laughter, clapping the dwarf on the back in her sudden mirth. “Leave it be, my friend. I'm sure you'd do no less for a Thunderbrew shield.”

“No the fel I wouldn’t, I'd make another! This is the height of gnomish foolishness!”

Valoria shook her head, still amused, and returned to the chest she'd been riffling through.

“Anything of worth?” The hunter asked over her shoulder.

“A few coins, a few linens, some ammunition. Lots of skulls... and this,” she pulled out a conical, wide brimmed hat of violet silk, with a band of golden ribbon. Shrugging, she plopped the dusty thing on Milo's head, where it sat askew and slight big for him, but his gnomish grin reached from ear to ear all the same.

“Now you certainly look like a wizard, Master Temperspark” Fermir chuckled and Valoria couldn’t help but to agree.


	3. Ellona

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not have any affiliation whatsover with Blizzard, the universe of Azeroth, or the characters therin. This is a fan fiction taking place in a world I did not create.

It was well past dusk when Valoria stepped into the Scarlet Raven tavern in Darkshire, the collar of her cloak pulled high to ward off the chill that the forlorn village brought to her skin. Everything about the human town held an air of despair and decay, from the sagging eaves to the tired people who shot her looks of bare suspicion as she passed by. Even the tavern common room was dank with the smells of age and something like desperation, and Valoria felt no more at ease when she entered. 

The antique common room was busy but subdued and the warrior's appearance was not unnoticed. Valoria stood in her full gear, steel breastplate glimmering from beneath her black cloak, her twin axes resting at her hips, and she posed in the doorway so that everyone might take a full look at her.

“Good evening all,” she announced boldly and smiled a cockish grin. Grim faces stared back at her, nonplussed, but a dark-haired girl at the bar put down her wash rag and approached her with a polite smile.

“Good evening, miss. Can I fetch you something to drink?” She asked in a soft voice and Valoria could feel the room relax.

“Aye,” she smiled down at the girl. “Your local lager, please.”

The girl nodded and turned towards the bar and Valoria followed after her, her eye on a spare stool, when a table of men and women in violet regalia called to her.

“Sit with us, stranger,” one of the men insisted and motioned at the seat beside him. Valoria took it and plopped her armored self in as though she owned the whole table and nodded to her new acquaintances.

“My thanks for the invitation. I'm Valoria Bearmane, lately of Kharanos.”

The man beside her, a blond gentleman with an eye patch over his left eye and a gruesome scar peaking out from beneath it, nodded. “I'm Dodds, and these are my comrades, Backus,” he looked at the man across from him, a younger fellow with a short shaved beard. “Ladimore,” a young girl, barely out of her teens, with long red hair who smiled tightly at her. “And Althea, our leader,” Althea, a solemn woman with square-cut dark hair, nodded shortly. “And we are the Night Watch.”

“The Night Watch?” Valoria asked, looking over their scale mail armor. “Are you mercenaries then?”

Dodds shook his head. “No, we are volunteers and honest citizens seeking to make right what the kingdom of Stormwind has allowed to go wrong.”

Valoria cocked her head to the side. “The cemetery, you mean?”

Dodds and the rest turned even more grim. “Aye,” Backus agreed. “You know of our woes, then, stranger?”

“Somewhat. I've heard rumors that your dead have woken from their graves and haunt your lands. I've come to see the truth of these stories.”

“They are not just stories,” Althea said suddenly, her voice cool. “We have suffered this way for decades, and we are not some sideshow for gawking visitors.”

Valoria smiled. “I mean no disrespect, commander. I'm simply a bit of a gold hunter, I wondered if I might find some profit in laying your dead back to rest.”

The innkeeper appeared at her elbow with her tankard and Valoria thanked her with a coin and then turned her attention back to the Night Watch. Althea was looking at her with mix of intrigue and disgust.

“We are not a wealthy people, sell-sword. And I confess to find it folly that any one person imagines they might single-handedly solve the problem of our cemetery, however pretty her weapons might be.”

Valoria glanced down at her axes. “What, these old things? You're certainly kind to notice.” She grinned and took a swallow of her drink, which was fair but nothing special. “I'll not ask any money from your town, but I wouldn’t be opposed to taking my fee from the dead themselves. Men are often buried with what they own, and I can't see that it does them any good. I think that's a fair trade for my time and effort.”

Althea snorted. “Now you're a grave robber as well?”

Valoria shrugged. “Call me that if you will, but I'm not here to quarrel. Let me buy you and your men drinks and be friendly.”

Althea sighed and her fellows shot her hopeful looks. She shrugged finally in assent and Valoria waved the innkeeper to her. “Hey then lass, a round of drinks for the room, on me.”

An obligatory cheer sounded throughout the tavern and Valoria raised her cup merrily to the townspeople, who all raised theirs back, except for one slouch already passed out and bundled into his cloak near the fire. Valoria drained her tankard and drew from her satchel a deck of play cards with a knowing wink at her drinking partners and before long the atmosphere of the tavern had lightened somewhat against the prevalent melancholy that ever pressed upon the town of Darkshire.

 

Valoria rose in the morning from the narrow bed she'd rented above the tavern and dressed once more in her battle harness and prepared to make her leave. She knew better than to risk Duskwood during the night, and at least by day the werewolves and other nocturnal beasts would be slumbering in their dens. As for the corpses that walked the forests, she was not very afraid to find them, but seeing them in the daylight would still be more comforting than coming upon them in the black of night.

The common room was quiet and empty, but for the cloaked figure snoozing still by the long-dead fire. Valoria snorted at the man in silent amusement as she walked past and out into the gray dawn, where the town was already at its daily rituals. The warrior turned for the northwestern road, which she knew from the faded roadsigns led to Ravenhill Cemetery, the infamous graveyard that haunted Duskwood. As she started down the cobble street however, a voice called for her attention and she saw Althea bidding to her, dressed in her full Night Watch gear.

“Good morning, Commander,” Valoria greeted.

Althea harrumphed. “Do you really mean to go to Ravenhill, alone? You must realize this is a mad quest. I with all my men could not take on that entire cemetery.”

Valoria tapped the side of her noise with a grin. “It's a good thing you aren’t coming along then, isn’t it?”

Althea glowered and crossed her arms. “Are you really this conceited or is this act part of your stratagem?”

Valoria shrugged and made to brush past her but Althea caught her elbow. “There's more than corpses in those woods,” she said lowly and locked her gaze with Valoria's. “And beware the Forlorn Row, a fallen warrior guards it and his skills haven’t waned in death.”

Valoria studied her for a long moment before nodding. “All right, I'll keep an eye out,” then she winked and continued out of the village, leaving the commander to watch after her with mixed approval.

 

As soon as the road left the shelter of the town it turned darker, shaded by hulking oak trees and weeping willows. The skies were the coal gray of an impending storm but no rain fell and Valoria decided that the bleak clouds were just another reason that the forest held such a gloomy reputation. As she walked further into the wood, keeping firmly to the road for even Valoria was not foolish enough to venture into uncertain wilderness, the scrambling sounds of creatures disappearing into the underbrush could be heard and occasionally a high howling sounded from the hillsides.

Valoria walked at a steady pace, her right hand on Hew's pommel, but when she realized that she was being followed she slowed slightly. She had begun to suspect an extra shadow as soon as she had left the village but had at first thought it to be this loathsome forest playing tricks on her mind. After nearly an hour of hiking though she knew that she was not alone on the road and surreptitiously she loosened her right-handed axe in its sheath.

With her footfalls lessening in their speed she could better hear the woods around her and she allowed herself to give in to her instincts. The tail was near, she knew, and she had finally become sick of playing the naive victim. She sighed audibly and came to a halt by a fallen log and then let her backpack slide from her shoulders as if its weight had exhausted her, all the while her grip firm on her weapon. She pulled out her water flask and had just raised it to her parched lips when a crinkle of leaves behind announced that she was no longer alone. With reflexes born of battle, she crouched and pivoted on the ball of her foot, surprising her attacker with her maneuvering. She reached up with her left hand and grasped the others weapon-hand and pulled it down, pressing her fingers into the others wrist with painful precision. At the same time she brought the guard of her axe against her attacker's throat, pressing them into the tree behind them.

“Agh!” The attacker gasped and the hood fell away to reveal a night elf woman, staring in shock and rage at Valoria. “Tur-” she tried to speak but Valoria dug the axe shaft firmer against the night elf's throat, cutting off her voice.

“I'll strangle you against this tree before I'll let you cast a spell at me, Kaldorei,” she seethed.

The night elf's eyes grew round and her lavender skin started to purple as blood filled her head, her mouth moving in a silent plea. With a sigh of disgust, Valoria released the night elf's throat but jerked her hand swiftly behind her back and upwards, forcing the woman into a painful crouch. The night elf erupted into coughing gasps but Valoria kept her axe blade ready. She realized that she recognized the cloak that the night elf wore, and that this was the same figure she had assumed to be slumbering drunk in the tavern that morning.

“Why are you following me?” She demanded.

The night elf shook her head and coughed some more and Valoria repressed the urge to give her a sip from her flask. She waited until the woman had finally quieted her gasping and then asked again. The night elf sighed.

“I... I mean to kill you,” she wheezed, surprising Valoria with her determination even as she knelt helplessly in front of her.

“Kill me? How do you expect to do that with your hands empty and your face in the grass?” She looked around and saw a silvery staff with a crescent moon emblem on its top lying on the ground where the night elf had dropped it. “And with a staff, no less? You're no mage, since you're Kaldorei, and if you were a druid then you'd have rooted me in place from yards away. What are you then and why do you want me dead?”

The night elf shook her head and grit her teeth. “I am Ellona Dawnfell, a priestess of Elune, bidden to end the scourge of the Black Riders, and I'll kill you and your kin or give my life in its effort!”

Valoria gaped at the woman and suddenly released her hold. She kicked the staff away as an extra measure but the night elf made no move for it and stood warily glaring at her, her hands upraised in meager self defense. Valoria noticed for the first time that the woman was short for her kind, barely taller than the warrior, and that something else about her appearance was unusual, though she couldn’t quite place what it was. Her lavender cheeks were tattooed mauve with the angled markings of the antler, and her braided hair was a deep purple, but her features were softer than was typical of Kaldorie women and her ears weren’t as long as they should have been.

“What is it that you think I am?” Valoria asked in a calmer tone and the woman started.

“Do not play coy, you carry the weapon of a Black Rider!” And she eyed the axe in Valoria's hand with obvious fear. Valoria looked at her axe, its down-swept blade and the striking serpent emblazoned into the axe head, its body coiling around the wood of the shaft and looping over her hand. It was clearly an instrument of remarkable craftsmanship, forged to deal death with every swing, but Valoria had never heard tale of its origins. She looked back at the night elf.

“These weapons are mine and no others; I do not know of your Black Riders but I am not one of them,” and as a sign of her words she holstered the blade.

The night elf seemed surprised at this and hesitated, her hands still upraised. “How do I know that you are not twisting words against my ears?”

Valoria rolled her eyes. “To start with, I've no horse. I'd imagine that a Black Rider rides something. And my aching feet are proof enough that I've been walking for miles,” she put her hands on her hips and stared up at the woman. “Any other stupid questions?”

The night elf priestess looked almost chagrined and she finally dropped her hands. “That doesn’t explain why you carry those weapons,” she insisted.

Valoria sighed. “I carry these because, as I said, they are mine. I do not know where they come from, but they have served me well for a long time. Now, why are you bidden to this dark place when you are so clearly unfit for your mission?”

Ellona frowned furiously. “I was given this mission by the temple's priestesses, so that I might prove my worth in their sisterhood.”

Valoria snorted. “Then you were sent here on a fool's errand,” she turned and picked up her pack. “You've clearly never seen a battle, nor drawn a weapon against a man. I can't imagine how you expect to defeat a cavalry band on your own.” Ellona's determined expression faltered and she looked down suddenly. Valoria bit her lip and sighed inwardly. “What are these Riders, anyway?”

“No one knows, for certain,” Ellona answered, bending to pick up her staff. “Some say they were a mistake pulled from the nether by the archmage Medivh in his white tower a century ago, others say they were mortal men given dark powers by necromancers in the village Sunnyglade, which humans have come to name Raven Hill. But whether they were born in Duskwood or in the reaches of Deadwind Pass, they are among the horrors that haunt this realm. Four of them ride these roads on black nights, howling frightfully, and it was they who slaughtered the families of the abandoned farms in these woods. They seek the Scythe of Elune, and if they are as powerful as I fear then with such a thing they could cause terrible happenings.”

Valoria frowned, listening to Ellona's tale. She looked up the road ahead of them, which was empty, but a gust of wind howled lowly down the path, kicking up dead leaves in its way and she could not resist a shiver. She looked back at Ellona. “I do not know about this Scythe of Elune, nor of where your riders come from, but if they do dwell in Raven Hill then you should join me in my journey that way. I have it in mind to see about the curse on the cemetery, perhaps we might find that our quests are linked and can help each other?”

Ellona's eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead. “Truly, you'd aid me, even though I attacked you as I did?”

Valoria chuckled. “I think it was more like I who attacked you. And I see that as no reason to hold bad blood, especially when we might work well together.”

Ellona smiled, relieved. “Very well then. In all honesty, I'd be glad of a partner in this. I am afraid that I do not know your name, though.”

The warrior grinned and stuck out her hand. “Valoria.”

 

Ellona and Valoria hiked the rest of that morning and into the early afternoon, stopping once for a short repast of cheeses, bread and thin-sliced jerky (Ellona ate only dried fruits and nuts) before continuing along the foreboding forest road. When they passed a sudden rise to their right, Valoria halted and stared up at the sheer cliff walls in mild interest, curious as to why such an abrupt change of landscape would occur.

“Keep clear,” Ellona advised solemnly. “Those hills are said to guard a gate, and they are not all that guard it.”

“A gate to what?” Valoria asked, still looking at the outcrop.

“The Emerald Dream,” Ellona answered and continued walking. Valoria gave the rise another long look before shrugging and following after her.

'Something to remember,' she mused silently.

 

They reached the abandoned village of Raven Hill shortly after noon and they were not pleased to see it. Sunnyglade had once been a charming little hamlet that guarded the great cemetery of fallen heroes and citizens of Elwyn, but after the First War some thirty odd years ago, it had become overrun with its dead and those who had survived the attack were forced to flee to Darkshire. Now it stood, nothing but several dilapidated ruins surrounding a long-dried well with the acres of cemetery reaching out just beyond it. An iron fence was all that stood separating the town from the graveyard, which must have at one time been quite tranquil. Oak trees spotted the gently sloping hills and white-cobble stone pathways led mourners throughout the graveyard to find the markers of their beloved. In the distance the remains of a sepulcher still stood, and peppered throughout were the walking dead.

It was unnerving to look upon, even after hearing so much about them. Corpses, animated by who-knew-what fel magic, limping and rambling mindlessly from their graves in such overwhelming numbers. There was more than a thousand, and looking upon them all, Valoria felt her confidence waver for the briefest of moments.

“So many,” Ellona murmured, leaning on her staff and staring out at the rows of corpses in awe. Valoria unhooked her half-face helm from her belt. “Aye,” she answered, pulling the visor mask down over her eyes. “Just keep to me. We make for the crypts to the north. If you find yourself overwhelmed, I want you to guard yourself in a holy shield and leave this place with all the speed you can muster. Do you understand?”

Ellona gripped her staff tightly and nodded, her lips thin. “Warrior, I think that you should know, but there is a man whom I believe controls the undead. He is a necromancer and lived in a house at the farthest corner of the cemetery, named-”

“Morbent Fel,” Valoria grinned at Ellona's surprise. “I did not come here on a whim, my friend. We will cut off the serpent's head this day.”

Ellona swallowed and nodded again, then she reached out suddenly and touched Valoria's hand. “Elune's Light give you fortitude,” she said in a peculiar tone and Valoria realized that she was casting a holy spell just as a feeling of warmth spread through the warrior's hand and into her chest. She felt suddenly awake and strong and she grinned fiercely at Ellona.

“Oh, I'll enjoy this,” she gripped her axes and walked forward into the graveyard, her black cloak swaying behind her as she marched for her first kill.

The undead neither saw nor heard but they seemed to feel her presence, perhaps through the vibrations of her feet or merely some befouled sense that they'd been given along with their false life, but they knew her all the same and as soon as she passed through the arching gates of the cemetery they looked up and came for her. Valoria didn’t hesitate, but moved with her dual weapons as in some deathly dance, twirling the blades after one another and into the faces, limbs and abdomens of the creatures that came upon her. The rotting bodies fell to pieces before her as she cleared her way step by step along the walkway, leaving their remains in piles of bone and ash at her feet. Some steps behind her, Ellona followed, her staff held high and her hand outstretched to Turn the dead that managed to dodge Valoria's ferocious swings. The priestess's lips moved continuously, murmuring her prayers and directing her holy light upon the onslaught, and slowly they cut a swath through to the center of the cemetery.

 

“By the Light,” Ellona wheezed and wiped sweat from her forehead. At the cemetery’s courtyard was an aged marble statue of a bowed paladin and it was perhaps its serene appearance that kept the undead at bay, for no corpses ventured near it and Valoria and Ellona were allowed at least this brief reprieve. “We must have fought through a hundred of them.”

Valoria, sitting on a bench at the statue's feet, took a long swig from her water flask, droplets running down her chin. She finally had her fill and sighed, wiping her mouth with the the back of her gloved hand. “At least. But they are not as difficult to bring down as I had worried they might be. Those that guard the gate were lesser creatures, without the power to think or weapons with which to fight.”

Ellona swallowed, looking ahead of them in the direction of the sepulcher. “Do you think that the others might not be defeated so easily?”

Valoria followed her line of sight and nodded. “I do. Althea and her men would not be kept at bay as they are by mindless, arms-less creatures. Something more sinister stalks these graves, and I suspect we will come upon it before we reach the tombs.”

They rested for a few moments more, then Valoria stood and checked that her armor was secure and in place. She glanced back at Ellona. “The way behind us is clear, you can turn back without fear of dishonor,” she said firmly.

Ellona frowned and shook her head. “No, this is my mission and you are my partner now, I could never abandon you nor my path.”

Valoria smirked and turned to walk up the pathway to the sepulcher, wisps of mist kicking up at her ankles. They had not walked ten feet from the paladin statue before an eyeless, rotting body lunged at them with its mouth agape. Valoria knocked the creature away with a backhanded swipe and continued her walking but after a few more paces a shrill noise filled her ears. She looked around sharply and saw ahead of her a bent, twisted creature which turned its head to stare likewise at her. The being was, or had once been, a man, but little was left of its humanity besides its structural form. Its teeth had been sharpened and elongated, and the bones of its hands had likewise been filed into talons. Shreds of skin and clothing hung from its frame and it moved with a strangely animal gate.

“Ghoul,” Valoria sneered. One of the greater abominations of the undead, ghouls were weapons created by necromancers to obey orders ruthlessly and without hesitation. When they were formed, they were stripped of all memory and thought save for the driving need for food, which they sought unending. The ghoul in front of Valoria considered her for a brief moment, then charged, his claws up and aimed for her head.

Valoria ducked under its wide swing and chopped through its arm, then kicked the foul creature in its hollow chest. The ghoul fell to the ground and shrieked to its fellows as Valoria's boot heal came crashing through its skull. The warrior looked up to see ghouls appearing from behind gravestones and bushes, leaving behind previous distractions to answer the death peal of their fellow.

“Elune keep us,” Ellona whispered, her features ashen.

“Elune can keep us another day, I'll take it from here,” Valoria grinned and charged at the nearest ghoul. Once more, Valoria became a blur of carefully placed swings, dodges, and kicks, moving between her enemies at a ceaseless gate, with Ellona doing her best to keep up and Turn the ones that risked overwhelming Valoria. Unlike the other undead however, the ghouls were strong and their claws were hazardous. By the time they had approached the pathway into the crypts, Valoria's armor was covered in sheer gashes, a few of which had landed on her flesh.

The entrance into the Dawning Woods catacombs was once a lovely structure, but now it was as forgotten and dilapidated as the rest of Duskwood. Marble columns had once held an adorned entablature, but one of the columns had crumbled and the cornice had fallen on one side, leaving the entry way with a sagging, slanted roof. The stairs downward were covered in rubble from the fallen roof and the once manicured lawns had long ago begun their effort in taking over the structure. Valoria and Ellona paused at the steps, looking at the doorway that led downward into the crypts beneath the cemetery.

“You're injured,” Ellona pointed to Valoria's arms and neck, which bled from scrapes left by the ghouls. “Let me-”

“No,” Valoria stalled her. “Save your energy for something life-threatening,” she gave the priestess a reassuring smile and Ellona demurred, though not gladly.

“Why do you wish to venture into that pit?” She asked, motioning to the waiting doorway. 

Valoria shrugged and wiped at a line of sweat over her mouth. “I've a strong feeling that what we want most lies in those catacombs. You haven’t lost your nerve now, have you?”

Ellona met her smirking eyes and shook her head fiercely.

“Good,” said Valoria, straightening. The two nodded at one another and then turned to enter into the catacombs that loomed in the dark before them.

 

Ellona lit and carried a torch in one hand, her staff raised up in the other, as the two made their way carefully down the aged stone stairwell that led into the winding crypts. The stairway opened onto a narrow platform, lined on either side by a low iron railing, on the other side of which were two identical chambers, startling in their size. Every inch of the space was covered in hand-crafted stone sealing the dead safely in an underground vault which was never supposed to have been disturbed. Now though, instead of bones resting in their loculi, they walked aimlessly about the chambers, their skeletons fused together by foul magic. Lording over them upon the platform were three massive skeletal warriors, still wearing the remains of their once glorious armor and bearing the falchion swords they wielded in life. Unlike the skeletons below, the warriors seemed to possess some manner of understanding of their surroundings and at the sound of Valoria's armor-plated boots, they each looked up in unison. Though the flesh of their eyes had long ago rotted away, there was a spark of red light within the skeletal eye sockets of the warriors and looking upon them, Valoria could imagine how a lesser hero might panic.

Valoria however bared her teeth at the skeletal warriors and charged, lunging to the right of the first warrior and skirting his downward swing. She rolled behind the construct and struck out at its leg with her weapon, breaking through the femur, and then leapt to meet the next warrior. The second warrior made a close swing with his rusted blade, the tip sparking on Valoria's chest plate as she was just barely able to back away from it. The creature swung back up for her head and Valoria dodged low then swung both her axes at its arms, chopping through the bones of the warriors wrists. The skeleton bellowed in rage rather than pain, since the undead were beyond such things, and she brought the pick of her axe head through the temple of the creature's skull, then ripped the head from its bony torso. Once separated, the red light within its eyes died out and whatever man the creature had once been was returned to the afterlife.

The third warrior did not wait for Valoria to charge and instead lunged his blade at her, nicking her side, then made point again, forcing Valoria backwards to avoid his thrusts. Something caught around Valoria's boot and she felt her leg being jerked below her and she stumbled to the floor. The first skeleton had fallen but was not defeated and with its bony hand wrapped around her leg it crawled for her face, its jaw hung open in a shrill shriek.

Valoria kicked at the head but the creature held tightly to her, scraping his claws against her thighs and cutting through the leather strapping that held her plate leggings in place. Valoria roared and kicked down on the skull with the back of her boot, crunching into the bone and the creature suddenly went limp, just in time for Valoria to look up into the waiting blade of the other warrior, which loomed above her.

“Holy Smite!” Ellona commanded and bloom of holy light burst through the skeleton's chest, dropping it to its knees. Valoria only barely rolled away in time to avoid the pile of armor and bones landing in her face.

“Well timed,” Valoria gasped and got carefully to her feet. She quickly reached for another drink of her water skin.

“Will you let me heal you now?” Ellona asked severely, looking at the gashes along Valoria's leg.

Valoria shook her head. “It's nothing, the thing barely got through the leather of my breaches. It looks like I'll be visiting a smithy after this, however,” she examined the damage to her leggings. The right leg would continue to hold for a bit but one of the leather straps that connected the two sheets of plate over the top and bottom of her thigh had been severed and the others were thinned. Hiking would not be comfortable.

Ellona sighed but said nothing and Valoria put away her water skin. “Let's continue.”

They bypassed both of the chambers of ambling skeletons, which did not react to their presence so long as they kept their distance, and followed through a doorway opposite the one they appeared from which led into yet another cubicula. Valoria and Ellona began making their way from room to room, coming upon more skeletons and skeletal warriors but successfully putting them down as they did the others. Ellona found herself amazed by Valoria's stamina, she had never seen a warrior take on so many enemies and still walk so steadily. True, the blessing that she herself had laid upon Valoria had certainly helped, but much of what the warrior accomplished was still driven by something that was distinctly within her. The further that the two crept into the winding crypts, the more in awe Ellona became of her strange new companion, and the more foolish she realized she had been to think that she could have killed her in the first place- or the Dark Riders for that matter. If Valoria was at least as strong as a Rider, and probably less so, then against one of those bizarre creatures Ellona would be practically defenseless. This thought struck her hard and it began to smolder in the back of her mind as they delved ever deeper through the catacombs.

Finally, they came upon what was clearly a main chamber and Valoria paused far outside of the entrance, putting a finger over her lips and looking meaningfully at Ellona, who likewise stilled. Valoria pulled out a sheet of parchment that was tucked inside of her gauntlet and Ellona was surprised to see that she was holding a map of the cemetery and the catacombs. Looking over her shoulder, Ellona realized that the map was quite old and must have been penned before the First War; the ragged edge also suggested that it had been torn from a book binding. It showed how the catacombs were planned beneath the cemetery above and where the homes surrounding the cemetery were once situated. Most of the houses no longer existed, but she recognized a structure that stood on Forlorn Rowe, and when she traced with her eyes the passages and turns that they had taken, she realized with a start that the chamber ahead was directly beneath the house that stood on that hill. The house of Morbent Fel.

“That's-”

Valoria nodded quickly and folded the map back up. “Aye, if I am right, this room will be the laboratory of the necromancer,” she turned to look at Ellona, her face serious. “There is no turning back after this. If you are careful, you could still make it back to Darkshire unscathed from here. I cannot promise you that you'll be safe once we enter this room, however.”

Ellona shivered but swallowed her fear and met Valoria's eyes. “Let us finish this.”

Valoria grinned suddenly at her, putting Ellona strangely at ease, and then brought an odd device from her bag. It might have been a mace were it not so slight and in fact it looked like something a gnome would use as a tool. It was a metallic rod about a foot long, which gleamed of some metal Ellona could not place, and near the end it opened into two half circles which were separated from one another by less than an inch. In between the severed circle was a blue-ish stone orb that pulsed with a gentle light.

“What is this?” Ellona asked in wonder.

“The Torch of Holy Flame,” Valoria answered and placed the device in Ellona's hand. “When I say, use it upon the necromancer.”

As soon as she grasped it, Ellona felt her mind clear from her trepidation and she realized that the object was imbued with some manner of enchantment. She looked back up at Valoria and nodded, resolute in her decision. “Valoria,” she said as the warrior started to turn towards the door. “I want you to know something before we go in there.” Valoria looked at her, waiting, and Ellona blushed slightly. “I'm a half elf.”

“I know,” Valoria shrugged. “It's why those priestesses sent you out on this fool quest. You realize that as well, don’t you?”

Ellona nodded slowly. The thought had been growing in her mind since she had entered the catacombs. “They want me to fail, so I do not sully their sisterhood with my bloodline.”

Valoria reached out and squeezed Ellona's shoulder. “We'll prove them wrong though,” and she winked at her. Ellona smiled back and they turned together for the doorway.

 

When they entered the chamber, Valoria was pleased to see that the necromancer was waiting for them. He was a human man, wearing tattered robes of black and deepest purple, which were no doubt lined in powerful magics despite his poor caring of them. His face was not very old, probably in his fifties, but his hair and beard had gone a deathly white and his skin was blotchy with illness. He stood on a dais at the far end of the long chamber, a plethora of dark tools lining the shelves behind him, and on the floor at his feet was inscribed a circle of summoning, written in what Valoria assumed to be human blood. The room was lit by candles that gave the already unsettling chamber a even more macabre ambiance, and in the far corner of the room there was a stairwell that likely led into the basement of the house above.

“So you are what has been campaigning through my domain,” the necromancer drawled. “Where are the rest of you?”

Valoria stepped further into the room, her hands on her axes though they were not raised. She walked almost causally as she approached the dark wizard in his cryptic lair. “This is it, just us,” she answered.

Morbent Fel sneered. “You two alone? How unlikely. And what has sent you here? Has the king finally seen fit to fill his protectorate?”

Valoria shook her head.

“Mayor Ebonlocke has found the gold to hire a mercenary then?”

Again, Valoria shook her head. “Nope.”

“Then who are you? Why have you ventured here!?” The necromancer was looking quite bemused by Valoria's vague answers and careless demeanor.

In answer, Valoria pointed her axe head upwards at his chest and Morbent Fel's face turned suddenly ashen.

“Even more unlikely!” He snarled and pointed his withered finger at the circle upon the floor. “To me, Mor'Ladim!”

A burst of fel-green light filled the room, emanating from the circle, and as if rising from a pool of water, a creature began to appear out of the summoning. A skeletal face stared out from beneath a horned helm, orange with age. The creature's body was adorned in ancient plate, and when it stepped out of the circle it stood nearly seven feet tall. From his girdle hung a sagging, fleshy pelt and Valoria realized with disgust that it was a human face, stripped from its skull. She wondered fleetingly if it was the skeleton's own face. In his right hand he held a two handed bastard sword, which glowed with the same green light as the summoning.

“You will make a fine addition to my legion,” Morbent Fel decided and pointed at Valoria and Ellona behind her. “Kill them!”

Mor'Ladim charged without delay, his two handed sword crashing down where Valoria had stood a mere instant before. Valoria side-stepped and twisted, bringing her axe head into the creature's side but she struck only bone and had to quickly leap aside from the mammoth warrior's next swing. He pursued her, not letting her rest and it was all Valoria could do to keep clear of his swinging blade. She had always relied on her agility in battle, it was what had kept her alive for so long, but against reason this fel creature was inhumanely fast and he kept pace with her as she rolled, stepped, and dodged. Valoria realized that she could not keep up this race forever and she quickly tired of playing on the defensive.

Mor'Ladim twisted his body to the left for a downward swing and Valoria tensed, betting all of her skill on one strike. When his swing came down she turned on her heel, both of axes outwards and showing her enemy her back for the slightest of moments before she slammed her weapons up and into the creature's shoulder. Mor'Ladim faltered to the side with the force of her hit, but to her surprise he let go his right hand grip and raised his sword overhead in his left, then brought it down upon her with terrible force. Valoria dodged but not fast enough and she cried out when the blade edge ripped through her pauldron and into the bone of her shoulder.

“Holy Smite!” Ellona bellowed, staggering the giant skeleton with the force of holy magic, and then she ran to hover over Valoria. “Shield!” She commanded again and a bubble of holy light surrounded them suddenly. Valoria was kneeling beside her, her eyes furiously focused upon the skeletal warrior, though her face was twisted in pain over her shoulder, which bled openly. Mor'Ladim was recovering from the holy spell and made for the two, enclosed within the holy shield. Ellona placed her hand over the broken pauldron and whispered a prayer of healing, golden light filling her palm and beaming down into Valoria's open wound. After a moment, Valoria breathed suddenly easier as the bone mended and the skin began to stitch itself back together. Outside of the bubble of light, Mor'ladim towered over them and raised his sword overhead then brought it down onto the shield. The light blinked but held and Valoria breathed a sigh of relief.

“How long can you keep it up?” She asked through her teeth.

Ellona looked anxiously as the bubble. “Not much longer. I'm afraid that I'm tiring.”

Valoria grinned suddenly. “Good thing you didn’t waste energy on healing those scrapes, aye?”

Ellona surprised herself by grinning back. “Yes, a small blessing, that.”

“Your Smite startled him. When I say, I want you to let the shield down and then hit him with all the power you have left. Can you do that?”

Ellona nodded, thin-lipped, and Valoria strengthened her hold on her axes. “All right. Now!”

Ellona immediately released her tentative hold on the shield and the golden light disappeared from them, leaving her suddenly fearful and exposed. Without pause though, she raised her staff and pointed it at the creature before her and called upon the Light that infused her body.

“Holy Smite!” Again, a bloom of light burst into the skeleton's chest and it staggered backwards, just as Valoria charged with her raised axes, bringing them down in a 'V' across Mor'Ladim's neck, severing the disks of his spine. The creature jerked, then its head tumbled backwards from its shoulders and the skeleton fell apart at its very seams, its weapon and armor clanging on the stone floor.

Valoria smiled in satisfaction and wiped sweat from her chin, then looked up at Morbent Fel's aghast face.

“How-” he stammered but Valoria charged, running full stride at the wizard, who raised his hand suddenly into the air and called upon unholy arcane forces to wrap his body in a shield of violet mist, much as Ellona had done for her and Valoria before.

“The Torch, Ellona, now!” Valoria ordered and Ellona held the device upwards, aiming it at the wizard but at a loss for how to make the thing work.

'Elune guide me,' she squeezed her eyes and tried to find the same power in the torch as she did in herself when using her holy spells. Suddenly the blue orb glowed brighter and shot forward a beam of white-blue light, striking the necromancer's shield. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the shield quivered and evaporated like morning mist under a sudden breeze. Morbent Fel screamed in terror and surprise just as Valoria's axe came biting down, through his collar bone and into his chest.

The wizard coughed blood and sunk to his knees, Valoria standing over him in victory. She smiled down at her enemy like a hungry cat, and then bent to grab his collar in her fist.

“From where do the Dark Riders spawn?” She demanded, Ellona running up behind her.

Morbent fel grimaced up at her, his teeth stained with blood. “I would tell you nothing,” he hissed. Valoria sneered and then dug the thumb of her right hand into the wound across his chest and he screamed in renewed pain.

“K-karazhan! They come from Karazhan!” He shook his head and whimpered. “I- I know little else. They search for a weapon of a god; I have given them aid in minions and information and they've r-rewarded me with a-artifacts from the tower.”

“What artifacts?” Valoria demanded.

Morbent Fel weakly raised his left hand, and upon his middle finger was a jade ring, set in a truesilver band in the shape of a a wilting rose. The stone of the ring was engraved with a purple rune. Valoria looked from the ring to him.

“Who is their master?”

The necromancer shook his head, his staring eyes beginning to dim and Valoria realized that she'd learn nothing else from the man. Lowering her voice, she leaned towards his ear and whispered her goodbye.

“You asked why I came here, dark wizard, to this lair to end your life? I came here simply because I could.”

She leaned away and watched as the light of life faded from the necromancer's eyes, and then dropped the body.

“What did you tell him?” Ellona asked as Valoria stripped the jade ring from the wizard's finger.

“I cursed his soul,” Valoria answered and stood, looking around at the paraphernalia lying around the room. “The undead are master-less now, they will begin to leave the cemetery. We should hurry back to Darkshire and warn them.”

Ellona's tired face paled. “The dead will attack them? But why then have we done this thing?”

“The dead might attack them, they might stand staring up at the night sky. They are mindless things with no power of plan. Without a lord to bid them they are far less dangerous, and with Fel gone, there will be no one to raise more corpses, or to create constructs like Mor'Ladim and the ghouls. What was a terror will now be a nuisance.”

She began to riffle among Morbent Fel's belongings, sticking any books she came across into her pack. Standing in the corner was a wizard's staff topped with an emerald jewel and she grabbed it, examining the staff. “I wonder if this is tainted, Milo needs a better staff...” she shrugged and slid the thing into her pack as well, where it vanished despite its size.

Ellona shifted, uncomfortable. “Be careful, a necromancer's tools are likely to be cursed.”

Valoria nodded absently, looking over a a stack of letters and finally shoving them into her bag along with the books. “Aye,” she hopped down of the dais suddenly and turned towards the pile of bones that had once been Mor'ladim. She could tell at a glance that his armor was useless but she picked up the blade with interest. The sword was a lovely piece of craftsmanship, the hilt styled like a set of golden wings and the pommel shaped into an eagle's profile. Beneath the grime on the blade were engraved letters in gold and Valoria wiped away the dirt to examine them. 'Archus, blade of Ladimore' they read.

Valoria paused, thinking. “Ladimore... Ladim...” she snapped her fingers as understanding dawned and she put the sword in her satchel. “Well then, Ellona, are you ready?”

Ellona sat on the edge of the dais, clearly exhausted, and nodded. “Here,” she said, holding the Torch out to Valoria. The warrior shook her head.

“It's yours now, priestess. Use it in good health.”

Ellona looked at the Torch and then smiled softly, tucking it into her belt. “How did you know to bring it?”

Valoria shrugged, walking for the stairwell. As she stepped over the summoning circle she paused, looking down at it in consternation. After a moment of thought she seemed to have come to decision and brushed her foot over the line of the circle, breaking it. Then she looked back up at Ellona. “I simply did some research, and I happen to know a few dwarves willing to forge me goods when the coin is right.”

Ellona slid off the dais and walked with her to the stairwell.

“I'm not looking forward to the walk back,” she said glumly.

Valoria grinned. “Well it cant be any worse than the walk here.”

 

The two did not make it to Duskwood before nightfall, but they met good fortune on the road there. Althea, and several of her men, were patrolling the road by torchlight, and when Valoria and Ellona appeared from the shadows the Night Watch greeted them gladly.

“So, you're not dead,” Althea noted.

Valoria, dirty, blood-spattered, her armor torn and her face covered in the grime of a day of battle, flashed the commander a white, even smile. “Don't sound so disappointed, Commander.”

A ghost of a smirk touched Althea's mouth. “Was the cemetery all that you hoped it might be, sell-sword?”

Valoria nodded enthusiastically. “Oh aye, all that and more. But how about your men escort my comrade and I to Darkshire and I'll tell you the full tale.”

Althea considered for a moment before nodding, and they all turned back towards the village, putting their backs to the darkened forests of Duskwood.

 

By the time the party stepped into Darkshire square, Ellona and Valoria had relayed the days events in their entirety, shocking their escorts with the telling. Althea finally halted and stared back at Valoria, her face caught somewhere between joy and disbelief.

“Do you really mean to say that you've done it? That we are cured of the dead?”

Valoria shook her head. “No, they walk still, but no longer do they follow the command of a master. You and your men are more than capable of putting down what remains, and I've faith that if you are diligent, the cemetery will be returned to the peaceful place it was,” she turned her attention to the red-headed girl who had been introduced to her as 'Ladimore'. “You, what is your rightful name, girl?”

The young woman started. “... Sarah Ladimore,” she answered warily.

Valoria nodded as if her suspicions had been proven and reached into her satchel, digging around for a moment before pulling out the two-handed blade of Mor'Ladim. “I think that this might belong to you,” she said without ceremony and handed the sword over.

Sarah Ladimore took the hilt in some surprise, which turned to astonish when she saw the engraving upon the blade. “Ladimore,” she gasped and looked up to meet Valoria's eyes. “Where did you...?”

Valoria made to answer but Althea stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. “Sarah, I haven’t told you because I did not wish to reopen wounds you've worked so hard to heal. Your father, Morgan Ladimore, was among the undead of the cemetery,” she looked back to Valoria. “I suppose this means you have laid the paladin to rest.”

Valoria nodded solemnly and looked back to Sarah. “I am sorry for your loss, but your father's bones lie still.”

Sarah gripped the blade reverently and nodded. “I did not know him, I was young when he went to war, but still, this means very much to me.”

Valoria nodded and heaved a tired sigh, looking at Ellona. “Well, I've had enough good work for a day. I'm of a mind to find a bath and a tall drink.”

“I believe we can find both for the ladies who slew the necromancer!” Backus grinned and was quickly echoed by the rest of the men.

“Indeed,” Althea announced loudly, calling the attention of anyone within ear shot. “To the Scarlet Raven with you all, tonight we drink in honor of Valoria and Ellona, slayers of Morbent Fel and redeemers of Raven Hill!”

The Night Watch and passersby cheered in wonder and disbelief, marching for the tavern with Valoria and Ellona's names on their tongues and a rare new feeling within the breast of every man woman and child who celebrated that night in Darkshire: a feeling of hope.


	4. Jameson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not have any affiliation whatsoever with Blizzard, World of Warcraft, or the game characters depicted in this story. This is a fanfiction.

Jameson

The jungle of Strangelthorn Vale in southern Azeroth was not a landscape considered hospitable to the average traveler. Treacherous beasts stalked in the leafy underbrush, marauding tribes of trolls attacked caravans for their goods, the insects made a constant stir, and the sweltering heat of the forest could bring a sturdy man to his knees. Valoria felt a conflicting sentiment towards it: in one way, the stunning natural beauty of the forest was an enchantment upon her. Trees that would have called her a newborn towered to impossible heights, their full blooms and fruits wafting an intoxicating perfume into the air and filling the eye with spots of vivid color. The waters ran crystal clear and the menagerie of wildlife was breathtaking in its color and and variance. However, the humid air that came to feel more like breathing in a chestful of water sapped the energy from Valoria's limbs and she was drenched in miserable sweat just from walking along the pathway that cut southwards through the vale.

Finally unable to take another step in her full gear, Valoria ventured off of the path to a sandy stream bed, which bubbled over with clean, lukewarm water. She pealed off her gloves and dipped her hands gladly into the stream to splash the water upon her face, then cupped her hands for a glorious mouthful, delighting at the taste of the crisp water upon her tongue.

A slight shift in the foliage, the noise of a leaf being pushed out of place, was all Valoria heard before the head of a spear appeared beside her ear, nicking it. Valoria froze.

“Put your hands into the air,” the voice was female but deep, and Valoria struggled to place the accent. Carefully, she did as she was told, biting down on her impulse to rip the spear from the woman's hands. “Good. Now stand.”

Again, Valoria did as instructed, getting slowly to her feet. Now she was sure that she knew what stood behind her and she glanced quickly over her shoulder to see a woman orc, wearing the tribal leathers of her kind with her black hair pulled into a high braid. Orcs were a tall, powerfully built people whose barbaric culture thrived in the wilderness of the world. Their leathery skin ranged in shades of greens and they were proud of the hooked tusks which peaked from their lower jaws like a warthog's. The orc growled when she snuck a look and brought the spear quickly against Valoria's cheek, leaving a thin cut beneath her eye. “No one told you to move, human pig.”

Valoria smarted at the cut and felt her temper light within her stomach. “I'll not be insulted by a under-bit sub beast!” She ducked low suddenly, bringing her left leg up and around hard against the spear and knocking it aside. Valoria twisted to gain her footing and drew her twin axes, advancing on the surprised orc with vehemence but before either could raise their weapons, Valoria felt something bite the side of her throat. She stalled and back-stepped from the range of the orc's spear, and before she even pulled the dart from her skin she knew by the smug look on the orc's face that she'd been poisoned.

“Who is sub beast now?” The orc smirked and leaned on her spear, and from the undergrowth nearby a male orc appeared, a blowgun in his hand and longbow strapped across his muscled chest.

“At least...” Valoria could feel the poison filling her head, turning her hands and feet to lead. “I don’t have an under bite..” and she collapsed, comatose, where she stood.

 

The rich smells of roasting meat pulled the warrior to her senses some hours later and she blearily opened her eyes to stare in confusion at the iron bars laced above her. Realization struck and she sat up suddenly, looking about with the wild eyes of a trapped beast. She sat in a low iron cage, approximately three by four feet across and not but five feet high, and through the bars she could see the evening sky and feel the crushed leaves beneath. She was in a small village of some sort, or a large camp, and judging by the lack of sea-breeze and the denseness of the trees that surrounded them, Valoria estimated that they were deep within the jungle. A ragged, red tarp that hung from a post near the central fire proclaimed that the settlement was a Horde camp, which did not fill her with any cheer. The Horde was the honorific given to the league of groups who were at odds with the Stormwind Alliance, and therefore no friends to humans. The Horde was made up mostly of orcs, some troll bands, Tauren, and the infamous Forsaken. These groups lived primarily on the continent of Kalimdor but the Stranglethorn Vale was known to be the stomping grounds of the trolls and, at times, their allies. Several orcs and a few horde-aligned trolls now stood talking or sat eating around the camp's fire, and Valoria made a quick count of twelve persons.

On either side of her was another cage just a few inches away and she could see that the one to her left was occupied. Careful to move quietly, she leaned as far as she could on the left side of her cage and tried to get a better look at the individual beside her. It was a human man, she could tell by the shape of his outline, and he lay on his side curled up. Firelight fell dimly on his face and she saw that he was young, likely late in his twenties, and he had sandy blond hair cut military short. His features were long but handsome, she thought, but then again she had always liked men with strong chins as he had. She could see that a great deal of dried blood covered the side of his face and neck and his fair hair was matted with it above his ear. He seemed to be breathing but barely and Valoria had no doubt how he'd received his wound.

“Oi,” she called softly to the man, who did not stir. She dared not try to raise her voice and looked on her person for any tool she might use but saw without surprise that she'd been stripped of her weapons. She still had her Lordaeron armor on however, which was a blessing, and she carefully unhooked her wide plate-bound girdle, keeping her eyes on the campfire. She seemed to have been forgotten by the orcs for now, who were speaking their crude, low language to one another as they ate. Valoria strained her ears to hear but she only knew a hundred odd words of orcish and these she caught rarely. With her girdle free, she began to thread the leather through the bars. The bars were nearly six inches apart, wide enough for her to put her fist, and she aimed the buckle of her girdle at the wounded soldier's hand.

The heavy buckle landed and Valoria saw the soldier's good eye open weakly to stare ahead of him. Valoria softly snapped her fingers, and his eye fell sluggishly on her. She could see that he was not well.

“Where are we?” She mouthed to him. The soldier blinked slowly and then struggled to get up upon his elbow, only to slide back onto his back, where he didn’t move again. Valoria swore under her breath and retrieved her belt. She turned her attention to the bars instead, examining their welding and looking for kinks. From the crudeness of the welds, she could tell that the cage was a goblin make, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t strong. 

Carefully, she touched and tried to shift every bar, seeking a weak point, and finally found one that was not entirely secure in its holding near the front of the cage. Valoria grasped the bottom of the bar and gave it a quick tug, her eyes still on the orcs at the fire. The bar shifted slightly but did not give and she let go, then turned her body so that she had her heels pressed against the center of the bar and her back firmly against the cage wall. Slowly, she began to push, her sinewy thighs straining under her plate leggings, her eyes fixed upon the orcs. The Horde men and women clearly thought very little of their prisoners and paid them no mind, assuming them to be harmless in their cages. Valoria meanwhile pressed harder and harder, the veins in her neck bulging with her silent effort, and then she felt the bar bow slightly beneath her feet. She stopped her pushing immediately and took a thankful breath. That was when she heard the bird.

The call made her stiffen, her attention leaving the camp and her hearing focused entirely upon the jungle around her. Valoria was no scholar of birdlore, but she had become accustomed to the steady strings of calls and songs of the Stranglethorn wildlife and she knew in an instant that this particular call was out of place. Her eyes still set on the campfire, she saw one of the orc men look up, his features taught, and she knew that she was not the only one to have heard the odd call. Before the orc could rally the attention of his comrades though, the jungle erupted with the hoarse cries of war and arrows came whizzing through the brush like malicious insects, digging into their marks and bringing two trolls to the ground, while injuring several others. Humans, dressed in the heavy gleaming plate of the Alliance, came crashing through the forest and into the camp from all sides, their swords raised high and their barred shields emblazoned with the lion head of Stormwind.

The Horde jumped to their feet and drew their own weapons and Valoria was left with a front side view of the skirmish as the two sides fell bloodily upon one another. The Alliance had the advantage of surprise, but the Horde orcs were a barbaric people bred into battle and they took to the fray with brazen tenacity. Sword blades clamored against axes and pole-arms and Valoria turned her full effort into dislodging the loose bar while the attention of her captors was engaged elsewhere. She dug her heels into the bar and pushed with all her might and felt the bar bend more and more, then she quickly ducked to check if it would be wormed from its slot. The bar shifted and with a bit more force she was able to pry it free.

“Ha!” She cried, exuberant, and looked back at the fight to see that the humans appeared to be winning. It was now nearly ten to five and the orcs were becoming desperate- which in Valoria's experience did not mean they were defeated. The Alliance archers quickly turned the number to four and were pressing in on the remaining group. Valoria wondered for a moment if the orcs would run but to her grim approval, the defeated Horde stood and with a group roar of defiance, they charged on their attackers. The soldiers fought back with equal temerity, driving forward like a wave of bloodshed and finally the Alliance stood, battered and bloody but victorious, and with only four of their number lying wounded in the blood-spattered leaves.

Valoria crouched in her cage with the bar beneath her, waiting. The soldiers were reviewing one another, checking who was alive and who needed help, and two of their party began to search the camp, seemingly finding what they sought when their eyes fell on the cages.

“Lieutenant, he's here!” One of the men called and rushed to the cage beside Valoria's. “He's unconscious.” The soldier's eyes fell on Valoria, who was watching him with patient interest, and he started. “There's another prisoner, sir.”

The Lieutenant, a dour-faced man who had grayed prematurely, approached the cages. He looked at the soldier. “Corporal, search the bodies for a key. Quickly,” he ordered and turned to look at Valoria, who continued to stare back. “What's your story, girl?” He demanded, his hands behind his back in military fashion.

Valoria bit her tongue against the epithet and tried her best winning smile. “I was on my way to Booty Bay and was jumped by Horde. I appreciate the help of you and your boys in taking my revenge, and I'd be all the more thankful if you'd send that key my way.”

The Lieutenant harrumphed beneath his iron mustaches and glanced at the hole she'd made in the side of her cage, then back to her. “You seem to have made your own key,” he said with slight impress and Valoria smirked.

“I don’t do well in captivity.”

The Lieutenant's mouth twitched upwards in brief favor and he nodded to his man to unlock her cage as well. Valoria kept her grip on her weapon but did not draw it out into sight and when the corporal had hastily opened her cage she crawled out with it tucked behind her back. Finally free, she stretched her shoulders and twisted on her hips to ease the kinks from her body as the soldiers turned their attention to their wounded comrade.

“He has a bad slash to the head, Lieutenant,” the corporal was explaining. “I think he'll pull through if we can get him to camp, provided infection ain’t set in yet.”

The Lieutenant nodded gruffly and pointed to his men. “Arrange yourselves, we're making for camp. Put the sergeant on a stretcher and get him out of here,” he looked back at Valoria, who stood still and stared back, studying him. “And what'll I do with you?” He asked sourly.

“Let me camp with your squad for the night,” she suggested with a shrug. Valoria didn’t care very much for the Lieutenant's manner but she was not foolish enough to venture alone back into a jungle which had so recently taken her by surprise, and at night besides. The Lieutenant scowled but sighed and nodded.

“Fine then, just keep out of the way. Have you a name?”

“Aye that I do. Men have taken to calling me Valoria Felslayer,” she answered with a sideways grin.

The Lieutenant's eyebrows raised slightly. “Felslayer? You don’t mean to say that your the warrior who took on all of Raven Hill cemetery?”

Valoria shrugged again, pleased by the disbelief in the Lieutenant's tone. “It wasn’t me alone, but I am her.”

The Lieutenant looked her over again, taken aback, then harrumphed once more. “It seems the tales were warped in the telling after all,” he grumbled and turned to monitor that his men were preparing to make their leave.

“Did they not include my partner?” Valoria asked casually as she began to peruse the camp for her stolen weapons.

“No, but they led a man to believe that you were a noble figure; like Utherian legend.”

Valoria chuckled under her breath and spotted a satchel beside the body of the orc woman who'd captured her earlier that day. Within she found her axes as well as her own bags- though not her gauntlets. She swore crossly and strapped on her gear just as the squad was ready to leave and she followed on their heels out of the camp and once more into the forest.

 

The squad made good time through the heavy brush, much to Valoria's surprise, but they sounded like a herd of kodo all the same and the amount of noise put her teeth on edge. She knew full well that there remained far worse things in the fetid jungle than Horde and she kept her axes half drawn throughout the hike, until they finally arrived into a small camp tucked high above a sharp path along one of the many hillsides that spotted the vale. She found that she was impressed with the camp: it was elevated so that the squad had a good range of vision and the single pathway meant less chance of a surprise attack. The heavy foliage and the sharp curve of the hill also covered the light from their fire and, wisely, they had settled near a running steam.

Valoria limped footsore into the semi-circle of weathered wagons and tents along with the soldiers and dropped her bags with a weary sigh beside the stream. Meanwhile, a soldier with the waifish look of a clergyman knelt beside the wounded sergeant and began to immediately administer to the man's wounds, while those who had been injured during the fighting waited nearby with surprising patience. The Lieutenant gave quick orders to the uninjured men to set up watch and an older man with the hard gut of the long well-fed waved at them from one of the wagons, from which the steam of a hot stew wafted. In the light of lanterns and campfire, Valoria finally got a good look at the men and women who had come to her aid and she thought it odd how thin they all were, and noticed with curiosity that there was a haggardness to the soldiers, and even to the small camp itself.

The warrior eased on her heels and turned her attention to the clergyman at his work, his hands outreached over the wounded and his lips moving in quiet prayer to harness the healing strength of the Light. A warm yellow glow filtered from his fingertips and into the wound and after several moments, the sergeant stirred and eased up to his elbow.

“...Nimetz?” He asked groggily and the clergyman, as well as the others nearby, heaved a sigh of relief.

“Yes, sergeant Jameson, it is me. You'd had a nasty run-in with the orcs when you went scouting, but you're back at camp now,” he said with a companionable pat on the other's shoulder.

Sergeant Jameson shook his head in an attempt to clear it and looked around him as if to clarify for himself the clergyman's words. The Lieutenant approached and stuck his fists on his hips. “Awake finally, sergeant? You've had quite the beauty rest while your men carried you through the jungle. Not that it worked at all.”

The sergeant smiled slowly and moved to get to his feet while the clergyman, Nimetz, turned to work his prayers the rest of the wounded. “Are you certain, sir? I feel quite pretty,” he raised a hand to his head and felt the dried blood. “Though perhaps it's under all of this filth.”

The Lieutenant snorted. “Let's get you cleaned up and I can brief you on the newest.”

The two walked towards the stream bed, where Valoria was already pulling off her boots.

“Well then,” sergeant Jameson whistled lowly. “What's this? I always thought water nymphs to wear less armor.”

Valoria smirked at the sergeant's introduction and stood. “Treacherous times, and all that.”

Jameson furrowed his brow at her a moment then his face broke into a beguiling smile. “Wait, I've seen you somewhere before...”

“Aye, we shared side-by-side rooms at the Horde camp. Mine had the better view but yours was the corner unit.”

Jameson chuckled and opened his mouth to answer when the Lieutenant gruffly tossed a damp rag at him, curtailing his response. “Enough of your banter, I have things to discuss with you, and things to ask of you, Felslayer,” he said the title with barely repressed skepticism.

Valoria shrugged and began to unhitch her belt. “Fair enough, though I have questions of you as well. Starting with your name and where we are.”

Jameson sat down beside the stream bed, his long legs stretched before him, and patted the rag around his face. “I've always preferred demanding women. They remind me of my mother.”

The Lieutenant crossed his arms and ignored his second-in-command. “I am Lieutenant Doren, lately of Colonel Kurzen's command, and we are at our camp in Northern Stranglethorn vale. That is, as far as I am concerned, as much as you need know. Now tell me, warrior, why are you in the forest?”

Valoria dropped her girdle and began to unhitch the buckles on her leggings and harness, her eyes on her work in the weak light from the fire and torches. “As I said before, I was on my way to Booty Bay in the south. I was supposed to meet my team there, but I left some days ahead of them,” she slid out of her harness with a sigh of relief and let the heavy plate drop to the ground. “Damn, that feels better,” she groaned and stripped her under-shirt over her head. Lieutenant Doren's cheek dimpled at the sight of the woman in her knickers and he firmly about-faced. Ignoring his obvious discomfort, Valoria pulled off her leather and linen brazier and began to slide off her trousers.

Sergeant Jameson's eyes became quite round and he leaned back on his elbows, not bothering to even pretend embarrassment. “Why would you leave without your team?” He asked casually.

Valoria, stripped down to just her underskivs, turned and stepped into the stream. “I don’t see how it is a concern of yours. I've answered your question. Now tell me why you and your men are out in this godsforsaken forest.”

Lieutenant Doren grumbled. “That is a matter of the Alliance Army and not-”

“Our Colonel went mad, so we mutinied. We're holding out here until we can bring him to justice,” Jameson answered, his eyes raking over Valoria as she dipped her hands into the calf-high water and dropped cupfulls over her shoulders.

Valoria looked at him in surprise. “Mad?”

“Sergeant! That is-”

“Oi, Doren, what's the point? We already brought her here, what's left to hide? One quick look around this place and the men and anyone would see something isn’t right.”

'That is certainly true,' Valoria thought privately. It did seem strange to have such a small squad so far out in the jungle, and the men had the hungry, hollow look of having been away from civilization for a long time.

“What happened to cause your Colonel's madness?” She asked, before Doren could argue.

“We aren’t sure,” Jameson shrugged. “We were sent out here about six months ago to establish an Alliance foothold in enemy territory, but shortly after we erected the compound, the Colonel began to behave... oddly.”

Lieutenant Doren's shoulders sagged slightly and he sighed. “The Colonel was a noble man, who loved the Alliance and what it stood for. But something in this jungle changed him; it twisted him from the inside, filling him with anger and paranoia. I was his second-in-command and, as was my duty, I tried to reason with him, to calm him, but he would hear none of it. He wanted us to make a coup on the Kingdom! It was then that I knew that he was no longer the commander I had followed for years and in the night I gathered what men I knew to be faithful to the Alliance and we stole away,” he straightened again, his back settling into the firm stature of soldier. “Kurzen became a traitor, perhaps not through his own fault, but regardless. It is my job now to see him either brought to the Stockade, or brought beneath my sword, and to re-establish the compound as an Alliance base. That is my mission, and I will see it fulfilled or I will die in trying.”

“And the men that follow you?” Valoria demanded harshly. “Are they equally willing to die for this mission?”

Lieutenant Doren half turned to face her and his eyes locked sternly with hers. “They are soldiers, miss. They are so willing.”

Valoria held his eye for a long moment, measuring him with her gaze, and suddenly she nodded. “Very well then. I will help you.”

The Lieutenant blinked and then frowned. “You will help me? What is that to mean? We are trained men of war, we don’t need the help of a lone rambling sell-sword. One who was overtaken by an orc, nonetheless.”

Valoria scoffed and stepped out of the stream, water droplets running down her bare, muscled body in the flickering light of the torches. “You seem a bit wanting in manpower and supplies to turn away help when it is offered. And if you are so foolish to disregard a well-meant sword arm then you are foolish enough to underestimate an orc in her terrain,” she bent and grabbed her once-white shirt and pulled it over her head, much to Jameson's displeasure. “You have heard my name and you know of my feats. My team is but a day away by whisper-bird, allow me to call them and we will help you to take your compound.”

Doren scowled. “And why would you want to help us?”

Valoria shrugged. “I owe you a turn for freeing me from that cage and feeding me a warm dinner,” she said simply and side stepped him as she made for the food cart, making the executive decision that the conversation was concluded. Jameson shuffled to his feet, the bloody rag pressed against his aching head. The wound had healed but the day's weariness continued to weigh on him. He placed a hand on his commanding officer's shoulder.

“She's right, you realize. Perhaps it's fate that has crossed our paths, my friend.”

The Lieutenant harrumphed and said nothing and Jameson followed after Valoria, a wry smile playing on his lips.

 

The camp was in possession of a single whisper-bird, which they used sparingly as it was a slight creature and extremely valuable to a party of deserters abandoned in a hostile wilderness. The bird was a tiny thing, no larger than a plumb when it rested in your palm, and it was a similar color with its mauve feathers and its violet eyes. The wonder of the creature however lay in it the two traits it was bred for: its incredible speed and its ability to mimic human speech.

While she sat beside the camp fire, eating with vehement furor, sergeant Jameson brought her the bird from its little cage and let it crawl from his finger onto hers.

“I hope you and your men are as fierce as you say,” he grinned and took a seat on the log beside her.

Valoria half-smiled back and held her hand over the bird's head and whispered to it for a few moments, then leaned back and looked into its intelligent, purple eye. “Fermir Thunderbrew. Duskwood.”

The bird cocked its head to the side for a moment, then leaped into the air and in a frenzied second it disappeared northwards.

“I have a good team,” she said belatedly, staring off in the direction that the bird had gone. “I do not doubt their strength or courage.”

“Is it true what they say then, that you slew a dark wizard in the Raven Hill Cemetery?”

Valoria nodded. “Aye, I went there to do your job some weeks ago.”

Jameson blinked, a spoonful of stew halfway to his lips. “My job?”

Valoria turned a steady eye at him. “Yes, the men and women of Darkshire have been hounded by evil things for years, and yet the army of Stormwind is setting up a fortification in the jungle.”

Jameson's handsome features sunk into a scowl. “That's hardly my fault.”

“No, but it the fault of the men you serve. Why is the army forging into troll-lands and leaving its people defenseless not twenty leagues away?” 

The sergeant shrugged. “It's not my place, I only follow orders.”

“Well it gives me an ill feeling either way,” Valoria glowered back at the fire. “Perhaps if we can regain this compound then the army will put its effort back into its territories.”

“Perhaps,” Jameson looked back at the fire as well, his face pensive.

Valoria stood suddenly and tossed him her dirtied bowl. “I'm going to kip. I don't suggest waking me.”

Jameson twisted and watched her retreating figure. “You needn’t sleep in the hay, I've a cot if you want it.”

Valoria paused and looked at him expectantly. His face broke into an easy grin. “So long as you don’t mind having a bed-mate.”

The warrior rolled her eyes and with a barely-repressed smirk she sought out a hay pile and plopped into it, falling asleep almost at once.

 

It was a little after noon when the soldier on watch duty called out that strangers were approaching the camp, and when she went to look, Valoria saw three familiar faces climbing the rise of the hill.

Fermir Thunderbrew led the band, his black beard braided neatly down his broad chest and the mane of his hair combed back down his shoulders. He wore his travel leathers and at his hip walked his snow leopard companion, her golden eyes glittering dangerously. To the dwarf's left strode Milovich Fergson Temperspark (the fourth), his bright red shoes a travesty even in the jungle and his violet wizards hat slightly askew. He carried a steel staff in his right hand, topped with brilliant green jewel that radiated a gentle light. The staff had been a gift from Valoria herself to the gnome, one that he'd been thrilled to receive, despite having to have it re-crafted for his minute stature. And to Fermir's left walked Ellona Dawnfell, her white and purple priestess robes tidy in even the jungle heat. She wore her deep purple hair braided down her back and had on her face an expression of ire typical of anyone walking in Milo's company for longer than a quarter hour.

Footsore but eager, the four followed the path into the camp and Valoria left the table of maps she'd been brooding over with Lieutenant Doren to race to meet them.

“Fermir!” She cried gladly and stooped to wrap her sinewy arms around her friend.

“Oi lass,” he laughed. “It's good to see ye as well. Maker's beard though, you're much too thin!”

“I haven’t had the privilege of your sister's cooking in quite some time,” she chuckled and knelt to give Milo a hug as well. “And you, young mage, I trust you haven’t been starting many fires along the way?”

Milo beamed back at her. “No no, I have been studying under my father these past months and I am quite in control of my powers. Mostly. I think,” and he winked mischievously. “I must thank you again for the use of this fine staff,” and he looked up at the weapon affectionately.

Valoria playfully yanked his wide-brimmed hat down over his eyes. “Think nothing of it, my wizard needs proper wizarding gear after all,” she stood and held her hand out towards Ellona, who took it lightly in her own and smiled gently.

“My friend,” the night elf bowed her head slightly. “It brings me much joy to see you again.”

“And I,” Valoria answered with a genuine smile and then turned to draw her friends into the circle of the camp. “I'm sure that you lot have questions.”

“Aye, like how a week in Booty Bay became a jungle excursion,” Fermir grumbled at her wryly.

“These soldiers here helped me out of tight spot, literally, and I thought I might return the favor. As for the rest of you, I think having Stormwind in your debt might come in handy.”

At this, the three traded swift glances. The soldiers of the Rebel Camp had gathered now upon finding that they had visitors and looked on at the dwarf, gnome and elf with interest.

“Rebels,” Valoria announced. “These are my comrades, Fermir of Kharanos, Milovich of Gnomergan, and Ellona of Darnassus. I trust you will all be as welcoming to them as you have been towards me.”

Some of the soldiers walked forward to shake hands and Valoria rejoined Doren and sergeant Jameson at the officer's table.

“You speak as though you're now the one leading this camp,” Jameson whispered to her dryly.

Valoria met his eye and gave him a sideways grin. “Don’t tell Doren, but I do.”

Jameson covered his laugh by looking at the map laid out before them with total absorption.

“Fermir,” Valoria called over her shoulder and waved the dwarf to them. “This is lieutenant Doren and sergeant Jameson.”

The dwarf nodded amicably at both and put his fists on his hips. “Well then lads, what exactly has the lass signed us up for here?”

“Well met, master dwarf,” Doren said stiffly. “We are engaging in an attack on the stronghold of a traitor to the King's Army, the former Colonel Kurzen. He and his men are holed up here,” he pointed at a small valley on the map, about two leagues southwest of the rebel camp. “It is a compound that we built as a base of operations in the vale, and which he has since turned into a base for his maddened plans of coup.”

Fermir's eyebrows rose perceptibly and he sucked his teeth. “Well then, that sounds like you lads are a bit over your heads. How many men has the Colonel?”

Jameson and Doren shared a stiff look between them. “We estimate north of thirty,” Jameson answered.

Fermir frowned. “Thirty? You lads are barely fifteen!” He looked at Valoria. “That's a force twice the size of ours.”

“I can add, thank you,” she glowered and looked back at the officers. “It really isn’t as bad as all that. With my men and I, you are nineteen and that'll bridge the gap. Let us focus on our advantages for now,” she pointed at the valley. “So this compound lies low?”

“Aye,” Doren nodded and motioned at the blocks used to represent buildings. “We built a main-house, a lumber mill, an officer's barracks and an enlisted barracks, and we'd begun work on a tower when my men and I left.”

“And this?” She pointed to a painted crevice on the rock face that bordered the northern edge of the dip.

“An entrance to a cave system, we were planning on using it as a stockpile and as an emergency fall-back should we come under attack.”

“Then let us assume that Kurzan will use it for that. How far back does this cave go?”

In response, Jameson flipped a page over on its clean back and began to scrawl with a piece of charcoal. “Rather far, and deep. It winds about like this, then opens up into a chamber, narrows, opens again, and then goes eastwards until it ends into a small cavern. There are a few satellite caverns as well,” and he marked each of these on his sketch.

Valoria studied his diagram for a long moment, her face drawn into a pensive frown. “Here,” she pointed to the first chamber. “And here are perfect spots for an ambush. I would have us tread lightly,” she looked up at Doren. “Lieutenant, you were the Colonel's man for some time. What do you imagine he will have planned?”

Doren's frown deepened behind his gray mustaches. “Traps, certainly. And some sort of last resort. The Colonel places preparedness before godliness.”

Valoria nodded. “Very well then, I believe I am forming a plan.”

 

The jungle was black in the early hours before dawn, when even the most nocturnal of predators had settled in for sleep. Nothing crossed their path as the Rebels crept through the underbrush, moving in two silent lines. Despite the heat, which became stagnant with the setting of the sun, Valoria had insisted that the soldiers wrap themselves and their clanking armor in their camp blankets to muffle their approach and compared to the venture they'd made together a night before, the blankets made a considerable difference. In this manner they came upon the ridge of the compound, and here Valoria held up her raised fist to halt the Rebels.

With all eyes focused upon her, she pointed to six of the men and then made a quick hand gesture, informing them that it was their turn to fall into place. The six men and women, each with a full quiver slung over their back and a longbow in hand, separated from the group and began to make a perimeter around the ridge of the compound. Valoria looked at her own team and silently checked that they were likewise in place: Fermir crawled quickly up the rise and picked a spot with a fair line of sight of the valley, then waved down to her that he was ready. Valoria nodded at him and then checked that Ellona was ready at her back. The priestess would be in charge of healing the handful of men that followed Valoria, while Brother Nimetz would be healing the other group. Milo stood away from both groups, gripping his staff very tightly and looking down at his red shoes with rapt interest to cover the strained look on his face. While usually sympathetic towards the young gnome, Valoria refused him any comfort when it came to battle and ignored his anxiety.

Lieutenant Doren and sergeant Jameson stood with their group of six, their weapons drawn and waiting and behind Valoria her group of three were likewise ready to begin. That was one benefit of working with soldiers, the mused. They at least were hardened against the fear of battle.

With a grunt of approval at her team, the warrior pulled her half-face helm down over eyes. She had lost her steal gauntlets at the stream bed but had been loaned a set of Imperial Plate gauntlets, which were plain compared to her Lordaeron armor but strong. She also drew her twin axes and looked around at the rest of the men, ordering them to be steady with her stern gaze.

Valoria turned to face the rise and cleared her throat, her signal for Fermir, who steadied his riffle. The bursting sound of gunfire echoed in the valley as his first round emptied its chamber and exploded into the breast of a man standing a sleepy guard duty near the camp fire; and with this resounding call to battle, the men below in their barracks began to tumble out of their beds, taking up arms as the Rebels swarmed over the hill, roaring like maddened beasts. Lanterns were brought forth from both sides to give light to the battle, with Valoria leading the charge directly to the officer's quarters while Doren lead his group at the enlisted. 

One of Kurzen's men appeared from the barracks, his shirt and hair ruffled with sleep and still wearing his chain trousers; he took one wild look at Valoria and swung at her with his dirk. Valoria ignored the hasty swing and chopped her axe into the man's chest above his heart and then ripped it out with contempt, not even bothering to watch the death of her foe but turning her gaze upon the next victim. Around her head arrows whizzed by from the prepared archers, who had hid themselves within the brush above.

Kurzen's men poured from the barracks and the mainhouse, freshly awake and ready for a fight which they gave to with gusto, the name of their commander upon their lips as they charged recklessly forward. Fermir's gunshots were relentless and well aimed, and upon the field Bara was a white streak of death-dealing as the leopard made use of her claws and teeth while men were distracted with their human foes.

Suddenly, from the blackness, a monstrous roar broke through the noise of battle and Valoria looked around in surprise to see three sets of eyes glimmering back at her and she felt her blood run cold as the creatures strode into the light of the camp fire.

“Tigers!” Jameson appeared suddenly at her side, his brow sweaty and flecked with blood and his steel cuirass marred. Unlike the rest of the men, Jameson fought in minimal armor for easy movement, and bore a saber and poniard. Valoria turned on the man. “You never said he had tigers!”

Jameson shook his head, his eyes upon the beasts. “Kurzen used to talk about capturing some, but I didn’t think he'd be able to pull off such a thing.”

Valoria ground her teeth and shouted over her shoulder, “FERMIR!” But the dwarf was already running down the hill to her side.

“Back!” He bellowed and fired at the first tiger's feet, causing the animal and his fellows to pause. The great beast growled angrily, its hackles raised in fear and rage and it looked about at the fray with trepidation. The tigers' lean torsos showed the outline of bared ribs beneath their brilliantly colored coats and around their necks were great iron collars tethered to heavy chains. Fermir drew up beside Valoria, panting slightly, with Bara at his heels.

“The poor bastards are starved, that's how they're kept in check,” he heaved, anger registering in his voice.

Walking behind the beasts were three handlers, each carrying a chain in one hand and a cruel spear in the other. One man leaned forward and drove his spear head into the rump of the tiger in front of him.

“Attack!” He screamed and the tiger lunged at Valoria, his hooked claws reaching for her throat. Valoria back-stepped just as Jameson drove forward, piercing the tiger's chest and withdrawing in a swift motion that let Valoria move in with a downward swing at the creature's head. Her axe broke through the flat of the creature's skull and it fell in a daze to the ground.

“Makers damn you!” Fermir cried out and took aim at the handler's head, his shot felling the man in a burst of bloody mist. Before either of the other handlers could make a move at the dwarf, he shot one dead and was reloading for the other when an arrow from the hillside brought the handler to a swift end. Freed, with anger and hunger vying against their terror of the skirmish around them, the two great cats turned in unison upon the bodies of their former masters, gorging themselves with grisly furor.

“What'll we do with them?” Valoria murmured, watching the beasts with mixed fascination and wariness.

“I'll stake 'em down while they aint lookin and we'll see to them later. The can't go runnin off into the jungle with those chains.”

Valoria nodded at Fermir and looked at Jameson. “Right, you're with me then. Let's finish phase one.”

Jameson nodded back and they turned their attention back towards the fray. Kurzen's men were grouping and fighting well, but the Rebels had been given stern orders and they were carrying them out with the obedience of trained soldiers. Steadily, the Rebels were pushing their way across the compound, and with five of the six archers still hidden in the black jungle, Kurzen's forces were feeling the pressure of being in the open. The well-placed arrows were cutting their numbers down far worse than the blades of the soldiers and their own archers were finding it difficult to root out the position of an archer before being taken down themselves. Finally, with their number rounded below twenty, one of the remaining Kurzen officers turned and bellowed a fallback to the men, and Valoria thought she saw the man grin with devious anticipation as they drew back towards the entrance of the stockpile cave.

“Push!” Valoria shouted and swung her axes with renewed frenzy, causing the man that stood before her to put all his attention on deflecting her strikes until she finally moved too fast for him and her blade met the flesh of his neck. Beside her, Jameson was parrying and lunging with a honed skill and the two worked well side-by-side, Valoria's close-range fighting complimenting Jameson's longer-range attacks as they cut through their foes. Several feet behind them, Ellona stood beneath a dome of yellow light, her prayers a constant murmur of holy magic aimed to heal wounds before Valoria and the others even felt them appear.

“Retreat!” Someone called at last and the remaining Kurzen men turned and ran the last twenty yards to the cave and then, finally, Valoria halted and cried out,

“MILO!”

From the nearby ridge the mage appeared, his stubby gnome-legs a whirl beneath his robes as he raced towards Valoria, coming to an unsteady stop at her side. He raised his staff and pointed at the entrance to the cave.

“Pyroblast!” He commanded and in the palm of his curled hand a flame burst into life, swirling around his fingers with growing intensity, becoming larger and evolving into an angry red, until finally he cast the ball of fire forwards at the cave. As it flew it grew into even greater proportions, becoming a small meteor wreathed in red flame that exploded against the cave entrance with a deafening roar that brought Valoria's hands over her ears. When the smoke had cleared, the entrance stood blackened and scorched.

“Damnit Milo,” Valoria rounded on the gnome. “Aim, man!”

Milo gulped and tried again, gathering flame into his hand once more until it was a writhing orb and then flinging the missile at the cave. This time, the missile flew into the cave's interior and when it burst there followed a pinging, crashing sound as unseen traps within the cavern were tripped and the cave entrance shuttered from the noise of the explosion.

Milo huffed and wiped his brow, then frowned and opened his hand one more time for the spell and this time when the fireball left his hand it burst with such a resounding tremor that the rocks of the entrance began to shift and slide, and suddenly a wall of rock and dust came pouring down into the crevice from above. Valoria and the rebels took swift steps backwards as the cave-in rolled outwards and it was several minutes before the rumbling of the earth stilled and the dust began to set.

Through the haze of debris and smoke, the dim light of dawn showed to the Rebels that the stockpile entrance had been completely closed off by the falling rubble, with Kurzen and the rest of his men entombed within.

“By the Light,” Jameson murmured, then raised his sword arm aloft. “We've done it!” He exclaimed with amaze. “We've taken the compound!”

The Rebels stood in a moment of silent shock at their astounding success and then raised their swords in military fashion and cheered for their triumph. Valoria chuckled at the soldier's elation and, not stopping to consider the wisdom of her impulse, she lifted Milo quickly into the air from beneath his arms and declared,

“Thanks to the wizard!”

The Rebels laughed and saluted Milo, who was squirming with indignation, and then one man hoisted the gnome upon his shoulders and cheered, “Hail the wizard!” Several of the men cheered back and Milo laughed beside himself. Watching on, Ellona and Fermir also chuckled at the display and Valoria opened her mouth to join in the chanting when Jameson turned to her with ardor and slid his arms around her waist with the same quickness she'd witnessed in his sword play.

“And you, you deadly creature,” he leered wickedly. “T'was your brilliant idea.” He brought his face close and planted a passionate kiss upon her mouth before releasing her suddenly. Valoria, her cheeks red with a mixture of pique and pleasure, made a show of wiping his kiss from her mouth but the sergeant merely grinned at her.

“I've killed men for less,” she muttered at him.

“And what would you do for more?”

Valoria rolled her eyes and made to answer when a shout sounded from the blocked cave. The Rebels all turned to the cave and waited in silence and Lieutenant Doren strode forward, halting to stand at ease in front of the entrance.

“Who lives?” He demanded loudly.

There was the sound of scuffling on the other side and another voice barked back, “Doren? Is that you, you craven bastard?”

“Kurzen,” the Lieutenant ground his teeth. “You godsdamned traitor!”

“You lead a mutiny of my men against me and call me a traitor!? Let me out of here you cretin, my blade demands satisfaction!”

Doren growled. “You deserve none, I'd let you and your men rot in that hole.”

“Are you such a coward that you'll refuse to meet me in combat!” The voice shouted back and the Lieutenant's jaw dimpled with rage. He turned stiffly to Jameson.

“Let him out.”

Jameson's shoulders slumped with disbelief. “Lieutenant...”

“Now!” Doren shouted, his face nearly purple.

Valoria put a hand on Jameson's arm. “Do it,” she said gently. “This is the proper way.”

“Damnit sergeant, you take your orders from me, not that woman! Open this cave!”

Jameson clenched his jaw and gave Valoria a brief glance then nodded over his shoulder at the rest of the men, who watched on with troubled frowns. “Gather some shovels,” he ordered dully and they moved to do as bid.

Ellona, her face and robes damp with exertion from the constant healing, joined Valoria's side, her arms crossed pensively. “This is not wise,” she said lowly.

Valoria shrugged her shoulders. “We have no say in this; we will simply do our best despite the outcome,” she met Ellona's eye. “You should take the others and head for camp.”

Ellona's eyes narrowed at her and she looked back at the men and women now working to dig through the rubble, not bothering to even respond to Valoria's suggestion.

“Work from the top, and keep the hole small. I want no more than one to be able to get out at a time,” Jameson ordered, his sword out. Lieutenant Doren paced back and forth beside the diggers, his agitation clear in his stiff footsteps. When a hole had been uncovered he briskly told the men to move and he approached the tankard-sized opening.

“This will be a gentleman's duel, Kurzen,” he declared. “If I win, your remaining men will give themselves over to the judgment of the military court and serve as my prisoners until I can have them transported back to S.I.”

“Very well,” Kurzen's voice echoed from inside. “And when I cleave your ugly skull your men will be hung like the traitors they are.”

Doren took a deep breath. “Agreed.”

Jameson closed his eyes as if begging the Light to stay his hand and he scrubbed the back of his neck with his increasing agitation. Valoria shared a look with Ellona, Fermir and Milo. The four adventurers stood slightly apart from the rest, their hands on their weapons. The Rebels might be bound by the agreement of two military men, but that did not reach to include Valoria and her team.

One of the Rebel soldiers used a pickaxe to elongate the hole until it could just barely fit a grown man and from within crawled a figure wearing a brutish set of gray and green armor. Colonel Kurzen stood tall and heavy, his shoulders wide beneath his impressive breastplate. Over his blocking arm swept a curved pauldron and the armor along his left arm was heavier to deflect blows, while his right arm was mostly mail and gauntlets to allow for quicker attacks. His girdle was wide and jeweled with brilliant emeralds and the set opted for mail and plate trousers and banded leather boots to keep his footwork agile. In his right hand he carried a fearsome falchion blade and in his left he bore a hooked axe. The eyes that glowered from beneath the cross-visor helm were dark and savage.

“Bare your sword, Doren,” Kurzen spat.

Lieutenant Doren refused to quake before the officer he'd once served with respect and he held his longsword high, his face dark with resolve. With Doren taking the high stance, Kurzen crouched for the low and the two men squared off, circling one another with slow footsteps. The Rebels took a long step backwards to give room and from the slim cave entrance several faces poked to watch the duel. Valoria sent a quick glance to sergeant Jameson and saw that the knuckles wrapped around his sword had gone white. She thought he was more anxious at the duel then he'd been at the prospect of the battle. 

Kurzen moved first, coming at Doren with his falchion out and his axe raised to deflect, but Doren stepped backwards out of Kurzen's range.

“You challenge me and then run?” Kurzen jeered and moved forward again, slicing out with his sword. Again Doren sidestepped, dodging the swing. Valoria harrumphed to herself, surprised and impressed that Doren was not easily falling into Kurzen's trap. Kurzen moved forward next with his axe, the blade pinging from the end of Doren's sword as the Lieutenant lightly pushed the swing aside and moved backwards once more, a bead of sweat dripping from his lined brow.

“Damnit Doren, fight! You coward!” Kurzen roared and lunged full force, thrusting his sword at the Lieutenant's chest. Doren lowered his guard to parry aside the swing, and in seconds that seemed to stretch outside of time, Kurzen's face lit up with cruel satisfaction and brought his axe down for Doren's exposed neck. Just as suddenly however, his face turned to shock as the tip of Doren's blade punctured through the soft cleft of Kurzen's throat, throwing Kurzen's aim but not stopping his momentum. The axe blade imbedded into Doren's shoulder with a spray of blood and the Lieutenant groaned aloud through clenched teeth, but kept his stance. Doren and Kurzen stared in shock and pain at one other, their bodies joined by blood and steel, and then Kurzen collapsed to his knees, crimson spilling from his throat. With a cry of rage and pain, Doren jerked his sword with the last of his strength and half severed the head from Kurzen's body.

“Lieutenant!” Brother Nimtz cried out and rushed to his officer's side, easing the man gently to the ground. Jameson stared in silent shock from the body of Kurzen to his wounded commander and the rest of the Rebels likewise stood as if in a daze. Beside Valoria, Fermir whistled lowly.

“Well I'll be.”

Valoria nodded, her mouth curved into the hint of a smile. “He sacrificed his own arm for the killing blow. I certainly didn’t expect that.”

“Brother Nimetz should be able to heal him,” Ellona pointed out somberly.

Valoria nodded. “Perhaps, but its a gruesome wound; and he still might have lost his head- it was luck that Kurzen missed,” she looked around the camp, the dawn brightening to show the bloody corpses that spotted the compound, the smoldering camp fires dim and the grass torn from angry marches. Near the center of the compound, Fermir had staked the two tigers by their chains and they lay together, their stomachs full from having gorged upon the flesh of their former handlers. The Rebels, the nine that had survived, stood beragged and tired, their faces smeared with blood and dust and from the cavern entrance Valoria could hear the mutterings of the remains of Kurzen's men.

“Sergeant,” she called. Jameson, kneeling at Doren's side, looked up at her questioningly. “I think you should start handing out orders,” she advised and he blinked at her, then nodded and stood, his mind suddenly clear once more.

“Right, sergeant Yohwa get to the camp and tell Bluth what's happened and help him bring our carts back here. Kaleb and Sethman,” he pointed to two of the archers. “I want our dead made ready for an honorable burial, lay them by the mill and keep out of reach of those tigers. The rest of you, see Nimetz and Lady Ellona about healing those scratches and then see me for your next orders.” He turned toward the cave entrance and picked up a shovel. “And I don’t want to hear a word from you lot until I ask for one. I'll see to you when I feel like it,” he barked and then threw a shovel full of dirt and stones into the hole, to angry curses and shouts from within the cavern. Valoria nodded, pleased, and approached Doren, who’s shoulder Nimetz was slowly managing to stitch closed.

“That was a good fight, Lieutenant,” she said. “You should be proud.”

Doren grimaced at the pain in his shoulder and shook his head. “A soldier doesn’t have pride, he has honor.”

Valoria resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Very well then, Lieutenant. It was an honorable fight.”

“Thank you, Felslayer,” he said and half-grinned at her. “For everything.”

Valoria nodded. “Never let it be said Valoria Felslayer left a debt unpaid,” she stood and glanced at Kurzen's nearly-headless body and while Ellona turned her priestly attention upon the wounded and Fermir and Milo began to riffle through the camp for any goodies, she knelt to examine Kurzen's gauntlets.

Disregarding the corpse, Valoria pulled off one of the heavy demi-gauntlets, admiring the craftsmanship that made the armor both strong and light, while the design was barbaric in its style. Looking the gauntlet over, she saw that when turned in the light it shined a brief electric blue, proving that the armor was enchanted and sealing the deal in Valoria's mind.

“Lieutenant,” she called and looked over at Doren who sat ten yards away drinking from a water flask he'd been handed by his watchful priest. “I'll be taking this armor, if you've no objections.”

Doren was clearly surprised. “For yourself? That suit is far too large for you, Felslayer. And it's not quite your shape, either,” even the slightest illusion to Valoria's rounded hips and bosom made the Lieutenant's cheeks blush.

Valoria smirked and began to unbuckle the gear. “I know a blacksmith in Ironforge who would love to get his hands onto this plate, I'm sure he could figure something out for me. Besides, I think this is a gift from Stranglethorn.”

Doren shook his head as if to say he didn’t care and Valoria went to work packing the armor away into her pack, where it should never have been able to fit. When she had stripped Colonel Kurzen down to his knickers, she stood and gave the Colonel a long and curious look, wondering what it was that had made this once honorable man turn against the kingdom he had loved. There was no clue upon his bloodied face however, no silent mention of the grain of sand that had been placed inside his mind and which grew into a black pearl of bitterness. Unable to discover any answers, Valoria shrugged finally and shouldered her pack, turning to see Jameson approaching.

“You're not running off,” he said warily, eying her pack.

“I've done what I said I'd do,” she answered. “It's time that my team and I leave this mess you have on your hands.”

Jameson frowned, his handsome face looking suddenly childish in his displeasure. “But, right away? You could stay a day or two, rest up, mayb-”

“Right away, Jameson,” she said firmly. “It's a good time of day to travel. If we leave right off we might be able to make it as far as Duskwood by nightfall.”

“Duskwood? You can't camp there, that place is riddled with undead.”

“Yes, it is, because the military is fighting in troll territory instead of seeing to its own frontier,” she said crossly and he bit his tongue. “That's why I did this Jameson, that's why I asked my team to come here and help you. Perhaps when this compound is settled, the military will put some of its focus back into the Kingdom.”

Jameson hesitated. “Perhaps, Valoria. But to be honest...” he shook his head.

“What?”

He stared at the ground for a moment then finally met her eye, his voice quiet. “Valoria, something has been strange in the military. I shouldn’t speak of this, in fact it's downright treasonous. But... I think there is something wrong going on.”

Valoria took a step closer and lowered her voice as well. “Something like what?”

He shook his head again and looked away. “I don’t know. I'm too far down the chain to be told anything. It's just a sense I get. And you're right anyway, this assignment? It doesn’t make any sense, not when there's trouble in Duskwood and the Westfall.”

Valoria's brow darkened but Fermir's none-too-subtle throat clearing brought her attention away from Jameson and towards the dwarf and gnome standing a few feet away and looking quite pleased with themselves.

“Yes?” She demanded.

“We found a bit of somethin',” Fermir said and winked.

“Did you?”

“You realize of course,” Jameson cut in dryly. “That anything you've found of worth is property of the military.”

“Not this,” Fermir challenged and held up a crude rectangular bar of gleaming gold.

“By the Light!” Valoria exclaimed and leaned in to examine the bar. “Where did you find this?”

“In a chest in the officer's quarters. And here, look on the back,” he showed her where there was a strange swirl mark on the backside. “That there is an ogre stamp.”

“It's ogre gold?” Jameson asked, incredulous.

“Aye, that's why it's shaped this way. Ogre don’t mold metal the same way as civilized folk, they pretty much just get it hot and soft and then smash into a shape, then slap their clan symbol on the back. They find no value in gold, for the most part, but they trade it from time to time with other races.”

“So...” Valoria murmured. “That would mean that Kurzen was trading with Ogres?”

“Seems like,” the dwarf answered.

“Well even if he was, that's still military property,” Jameson insisted.

“No,” Valoria looked up at him smugly. “It's military payment to my team for services rendered.”

Jameson shook his head with a wry grin. “No, you agreed to this pro-bono, as it were, since my men saved your well-shaped behind from that Horde camp.”

“I agreed, yes. But not my team. They are well-trained and highly sought-after mercenaries and since you failed to specify terms of payment beforehand, they will now be taking their cut from the ogre gold. Unless of course you want to pay them in Alliance coin?”

Jameson dropped his shoulders and shook his head in defeat. “Fine,” he said, clearly too tired to argue further. “Is one bar each fair, Master Dwarf?”

Fermir thought on this a moment then finally nodded. “Aye, I suppose I'll call it fair. And for one extra I'll get those tigers out of your hair for ye,” and he grinned widely beneath his black beard.

Jameson looked from the hunter to the two great cats sunning themselves in the compound center. “All right, fine, you dirty mountain dweller.”

Fermir pocketed the bar and touched the brim of his hood in salute. “Was nice doing business wit ye, Sergeant. Watch yer back, eh?”

Jameson nodded and waved the dwarf and gnome away, then turned back to a smug Valoria. “I believe that I've just been swindled,” he said mildly.

Valoria smirked. “I'm sure it wont be the last time,” and she moved to walk past him.

“Wait,” he caught her arm to stall her. She paused, watching him with an anticipative raise of her eyebrow. He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to think better of it, and then after a flustered moment he unbuckled the saber and scabbard from his belt. “Take this, it means much to me. I can imagine that you'll look on it from time to time and think of me. Perhaps while you're alone and in bed,” he grinned.

Valoria glared at him from beneath hooded eyes but took the sword and gazed at it thoughtfully, then strapped it around her waist so that it hung beside her right-handed axe. Then she leaned up on her toes and gave him a short kiss on his mouth. “This wont be the last time we cross paths,” she predicted and then turned to join her team.

Ellona, Fermir, and Milo stood talking excitedly amongst themselves about the battle and the gold, with Fermir and Milo animatedly reliving the fight with the tigers and the collapse of the cave. Ellona gave Valoria a small smirk when she approached, a silent comment on the warrior's goodbye with the handsome sergeant. Valoria did not deign to acknowledge the look.

“Well, are you lot ready to get going? I think if we leave now we'll be able to stop for a repast near the river by noon,” she guessed, looking up at the brimming sun.

Fermir and Milo shrugged and Ellona sighed audibly, clearly displeased by Valoria's ever-strict scheduling. “And what of traveling to Booty Bay?”

“I've given up on that venture for now,” Valoria answered with a dismissive shrug. “We'll get to Booty Bay some other time, but I've had my fill of this jungle for now.”

“Oh, I find it delightful!” Milo exclaimed and Fermir snatched the gnome's wizard hat off his head.

“That's 'cus you don't have enough chin hair to matter; if'n ye had a proper beard you'd be as miserable in this heat as me.”

Milo scrunched up his features and reached for his hat, which Fermir held high over his head. Ellona rolled her eyes at the two and Valoria chuckled.

“And what of those tigers, master hunter,” she nodded at the beasts.

“Ah, beastmaster's trick. Bit of soft talkin an' I can get them to walk outa the camp, I'll let them loose when we're out of sight of the compound here. Can't have them running back fer seconds.”

“Well run on and get them then, I've my eye on the horizon and I mean to be in Stormwind in a few days, there's something I'd like to look into.”

“Oh?” Ellona asked with a raised eyebrow. “What's caught your interest now?”

Valoria readjusted her pack and started to walk on, her right hand on her axe hilt. “T'was just something the sergeant said.”


	5. Raj

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no affiliation whatsover with Blizzard entertainment or World of Warcraft. This is a fanfic set in a universe I did not design.

Raj

Stormwind city, the seat of the human king and metropolis of the Alliance, posed short and squat on the coast of the Great Sea, with the southern end of the Khaz mountains at its side and the sprawling, peaceful forests of Elwyn at is feet. Here, among buildings of white stone mounted together with such ineptitude that it made a dwarf cringe to look upon, and brightly painted gable rooftops that made a gnome jealous, resided some of the most significant organizations among the Eastern Kingdoms. Prominent, the grand Cathedral of the Light dominated the skyline with its pointed, reaching steeples, to which priests and paladins of the Alliance traveled from all over Azeroth in order to study the ways of spiritual awareness and become beacons of good. The Cathedral Square where it stood was one of several districts that the city was divided into, the others including the Trade District where all of Stormwind's best shops, city coin house, and auction house were found; the Old Town, which was rightly named and was where the guard barracks were housed; the Dwarven District, which traveling dwarves called home for them and their wares; the Mage Quarter, home to the Wizard's Sanctum, the last school of wizardry in the Eastern Kingdoms; and finally The Park, which was more a hideaway for love-lorn youths than anything else.

Separating the districts from one another were the canals of lazy teal water that crisscrossed through the city in a grid that drove visitors half mad with confusion. Fortunately enough for Valoria, she had had enough time to learn the myriad of side streets, alleyways, and even the better main-ways that allowed a busy traveler to get around the bustling city with ease. Stormwind had lost its mysteries to her long ago.

She had arrived in the city some weeks ago, determined to seek out information on the rumors she'd heard about the Alliance army from a sergeant Jameson she'd come across in Strangelthorn Vale, but when her inquiries led nowhere and brought about only looks of suspicion, she chose to place her curiosity on hold for the time being and to pursue other concerns. Mainly, drinking.

On one particularly pleasant summer night, the warrior sat at a favorite haunt of hers, the Blue Recluse tavern in the Mage Quarter, enjoying an Elwyn cider ale and loosing amicably at a game of cards with some of the other regulars. She sat in her casual best; fitted black trousers tucked into soft leather boots and a white shirt rolled to the elbows and open at the chest, allowing enough cleavage to show to keep her drinks pouring at half price. A long-stemmed pipe fell from her lips and her brown curls hung down her shoulder in a loose braid; she had also emptied just enough tankards to burn her cheeks a tipsy pink.

The warrior and her card mates sat in the loft of the tavern, with a view of the rest of the common room below. Violet-toned night elves, scruffy dwarves, dreary humans and gaily dressed gnomes gathered at the long communal tables, laughing, arguing and sharing tales while the barmaids laid down spirits, sizzling fry pans of sausage links, bowls of turtle bisque, and plates of boiled clams. The smells of the kitchen combined with the ale-soaked wood of the tavern and the weedsmoke of some ten odd pipes gave the room the cheerful ambiance of fraternity that brought Valoria to the tavern in the first place. She certainly loved Ironforge and Kharanos, where dwarves sung riotous songs and clanged their tankards together in boisterous good will, and she found tranquil peace in the forest city of Darnassus where the tree boughs whispered secrets to one another on the evening breeze, but only in Stormwind could a person see the true breadth of the Alliance and experience the myriad of cultures that made it, and that was something which Valoria deeply enjoyed.

The night was nearing its mid and Valoria was pleasantly drunk and much lighter of coin purse when she decided that it was about time for her to make her way home. Her card partners bid her a pleasant goodnight and she dropped the rest of her purse on the bar to cover her tab and the waitress' well-earned tip before she walked out into the Stormwind night. 

The late summer air was brisk and worked to clear her head some of its drunken haze. The Mage Quarter was one of the quieter districts of the city, with grassy walkways that meandered around shops and studio apartments that slumped against one another in a whimsical fashion. Emerald vines spiraled along the plank and mortar faces of the buildings and snuck into open windows on the top stories and in the spring they bloomed white flowers which filled the quarter with a lovely, hazy smell. 

Singing off-key under her breath, Valoria lumbered by the Wizard's Sanctum, the spiral tower where the Academy of Arcane Science was housed, and passed beneath some of the stone bridges that linked second-level shops to one another, coming finally to a clothier store. The door to the shop was locked shut against the late hour but Valoria turned instead down a side alley and ducked through a slight doorway, then climbed up a steep flight of stairs to the apartment resting above the shop, finding the lock with some difficulty in the dark.

The apartment had been hers for several months, though she was rarely in town long enough to enjoy it, and it had been a fortunate find in the crowded city. She rented it from the same gnome woman who owned the shop beneath and had paid extra for her privacy and time spent away, which was often. The door opened into a long, narrow room that stretched to the right of the doorway and made up the kitchenette and sitting area. A large stone fireplace stood in the center of the left wall, where two low chairs were faced, and the farthest wall was taken up almost entirely by the great-pane window, through which moonlight streamed upon the stressed wood floor. At the far end of the room another doorway on the left opened into the master bedchamber, where Valoria now stumbled to. The room wasn’t overly spacious and most of it was taken up by the large bed Valoria kept against the wall beside the doorway, but it was comfortable to her and all that she required. A bureau stood in the corner across from the bed and on the wall facing the Quarter was a glass clerestory. Opposite the windows was a small bath chamber, complete with a rarity in the city: running pipe water.

Valoria walked to the clerestory and clicked open one of the windows, airing out the stuffy room with the evening breeze and then turned to kick her boots beneath the bed and strip out of her trousers and shirt, plopping onto the bed in nothing but her underskivs. She lay thoughtfully in the moonlight that streamed from the windows, still mumbling the words to a drinking diddy softly to herself, before rolling over and falling easily into a drunken slumber. It was thus why she did not immediately wake when the ajar window pane swung slowly inwards and a black-garbed figure slipped silently through the casing.

The figure, dressed in black leathers and wearing a hood and half-face mask, paused on the window sill long enough to assure itself that the tenant was indeed asleep and then toed into the room, making for the bureau. Carefully, it opened the swinging doors and gloved fingers riffled over the compartments within, scanning over articles of clothing and seeking instead the small cupboards, pulling each open and glancing over the goods before closing and moving to the next. After a few short minutes the thief seemed to have riffled through the entire chest of drawers without finding what it sought and it began to search about the rest of the room instead.

Shelves covered in piles of books wrapped around the entire room and the figure alighted upon these, running its fingers into gaps and beneath piles, seeking some item in particular. It took a cursory check of the washroom and the end tables on either side of the bed before finally approaching Valoria herself.

There, hidden at first by the mane of curls hanging down Valoria's neck, were several chains and amulets, one in particular being a thin cord where hung a jade truesilver ring. The figure made a soft sigh of resignation then reached its agile fingers for the necklace. As the fingers touched the cord, Valoria's hazel eyes flew open and she rolled, grabbing a fistful of the thief’s sleeve in one hand and slamming her other hand into the masked face, sending the figure to the floor where Valoria followed with a panther-like leap. The thief landed on his backside but recovered from the surprise of the blow and drew a wicked, doubled edged dagger, moving into a crouch. Valoria stood in her warrior's stance, weaponless but for her raised fists, her hair wild and her body bare. The muscles of her legs and abdomen were lined in shadow from the striking moonlight.

The thief lunged, blade outwards, and Valoria whipped her left hand forward with snake-like speed, grabbing the attacker's wrist and bringing the palm of her right hand into the thief's chin. When she withdrew her hand she wrapped her fingers around the cloth mask and ripped it away, revealing the thief's face. 

Valoria started, surprised at seeing the lovely features that stared back up at her in determination. A soft, full mouth, swollen from being struck, a slim, straight nose, and large dark eyes looked back at her from beneath a swath of dark hair and in Valoria's moment of surprise the thief took her advantage, tackling into Valoria around her waist. The warrior fell onto her back with the thief on top, who struggled to regain control of her knife hand. Valoria gritted her teeth as the thief quickly gained the advantage, ripping her blade hand free from her grasp and then holding the dagger just over Valoria's throat, her legs straddling her waist.

“I just want the bauble,” the thief warned with unexpected calm and Valoria surprised her by grinning fiendishly.

“Are you ready?” She asked.

The thief's brow furrowed. “For what?”

“One.”

The thief glanced quickly around them, curiosity and confusion clear on her features.

“Two.”

“Stop thi-”

“Three!” Valoria shouted and used all the strength in her powerful legs to bow her hips up, taking the thief by total surprise and tossing her forward over Valoria's head and onto the floorboards. Valoria rolled and scrambled immediately on top of the thief, pinning both of her arms outstretched to the side and gripping her rib cage with her thighs, putting pressure on the woman's lungs.

“Drop your weapon,” Valoria ordered and looked down upon the thief. Now though, it was the thief's turn to take Valoria by surprise when she opened her mouth and reached up to clamp it on Valoria's full breast, her teeth digging into her nipple.

“No!” Valoria shrieked in disbelief. “Stop stop stop!” The pain shot through Valoria's entire body and panic took over her stomach as she imagined the thief biting the nipple from her chest. She released her hold on thief's wrists and the thief likewise let go her hold on Valoria's breast, though not without a startling flick of her tongue. Valoria rolled away and leaned with her back against the bed frame, her hand over her wounded breast and her wide eyes watching the thief, still in shock. The thief moved to her feet with alarming grace, her blade tip out towards Valoria in warning. She took a step backwards on feet that made no noise and found her way back to the window through which she'd entered, her eyes not leaving Valoria's. As she crawled back into the window she gave the warrior the smuggest of winks and then disappeared into the night.

Valoria heaved a giant sigh and laid her head back upon the edge of the bed. She had never in her life experienced such terror during a fight. She moved her hand and examined her chest: a rounded set of teeth marks had broken the skin and drops of blood smeared the white of her breast. Valoria sighed again closed her eyes, realizing suddenly that this would likely become one of her worst hangovers.

 

The following morning, Valoria woke late and famished and decided on making for herself a bowl of chopped fruits and then went to pour herself a bath. The washroom was a marvel that Valoria had paid a hefty price for, but it was worth every copper as far as she was concerned. White and mint-green tiles decorated the floor and the walls had been specially sealed against the moisture, giving them a rich, amber tone. A deep sealed mahogany bath tub sat in the center of the room, long enough to lay out inside and from the foot of the tub protruded two copper spouts, complete with gnomish cogs as proof of their engineer. A separate sink basin stood in the corner of the room with an oval mirror above it.

Valoria turned the spout to fill the tub and disrobed, easing into the steaming water with her breakfast and allowing the night's events to drain from her pores. Laying back against the carved headrest, she began to muse on the thief and what it was that she had clearly wanted: the jade ring of Morbent Fel. 

Valoria grasped the ring in her palm, feeling its weight and design. Several days ago, she had gone to the Auction House in Stormwind to see about selling the thing, but none of the tellers were willing then to give her what she thought to be a fair price for the gem and she declared the man a crook and determined to have it appraised by a professional. No doubt, someone in the Auction House must have taken notice. Still, it had not been a very pressing matter to her and so she'd nearly come to forget it. She knew the ring to be too valuable to leave in her rooms, as last night was proof, but was not foolish enough to wrap it around her own finger and so had placed it on a cord around her neck. In battle she wore a myriad of enchanted necklaces and medallions to empower her swings and quicken her steps, and so the ring was not in her way, and it was happen-chance that she had still had it on the night before.

Now, she decided, it was about time that she learn what sort of gem the ring really was, and who would want such a thing so badly.

 

Valoria was hesitant to allow just anyone to examine the ring, especially since it might encourage other thieves, and she felt her only matter of recourse then was a mage that she trusted. Fortunately, Milovich Fergson Temperspark the Fourth had recently been accepted to the Wizards Sanctum and had taken up lodging in the dormitories in the tower in the Mage Quarter.

Valoria made her way to the tower shortly after her morning libations, dressed in a simple green peasant dress that was tucked under the bodice and loose sleeved. She secured the ring safely in her satchel and donned a sage-brown dress cloak and stepped out into the Stormwind morning. Valoria did not often elect to delve into her more feminine wardrobe but she was in a rare mood for a dress and besides, it was always a smart idea to dress to impress when visiting the mage tower. Some of the most powerful men and women in the Alliance studied in the tower and it never hurt to have someone of potential influence smitten, something she had learned from her very wise mother.

Valoria followed the winding walkway upwards to the tower's entrance, several floors from the ground, and informed the attendant at the door who she was calling after. The attendant, a young human lad dressed in acolyte robes, nodded and turned to make inquiries while Valoria let herself inside behind his unobservant back and walked quickly up another flight of stairs. At the top of the flight was a massive circle of aqua light emanating from the stone wall. Across the surface of the circle played bursts of green and blue light waves, looking much like the choppy surface of a pond, and without stalling her steps Valoria walked through the portal and appeared on the other side in an arching apse that was far too large to possibly be a part of the tower. Tall stained glass windows let in a muted twilight upon the polished marble floor and bustling back and forth across the apse and in and out of various doorways were mages, dressed in fine robes and either talking animatedly together or brooding alone on such cosmic questions that Valoria could only guess.

Using her most endearing of tones, she stopped one swarthy mage who was sauntering by and who came to a quick halt when she laid her hand on his elbow. 

“Excuse me, master magi. Might you know where I could find Milovich Temperspark?”

The mage studied her intently for a moment and whet his lips, clearly with sudden topics other than his studies on his mind. “Temperspark, you ask? Hmm. I don't know that any Tempersparks are in the tower presently. Perhaps I might be able to help you instead?” And he smiled smoothly, a bit too smoothly in Valoria's mind.

Valoria demurred. “Are you certain? He is new to the Sanctum.”

The mage nodded with sudden understanding. “Ah, an apprentice then. Apprentices are at their chores this time of day, why not check in the mess?” He pointed to a hallway on his left. “Or I could escort you, if you'd rather?”

Valoria smiled apologetically and shook her head. “I've caused you enough trouble, but thank you for the help,” and she strode in the direction he pointed before he could insist.

The mess was easy to find and sure enough, several youths in the simple robes of apprentices where busily sweeping the stone floor and scrubbing down the long tables where the mages shared their meals. Valoria spotted Milo and his bright green hair right away and she surprised him by tapping on his shoulder.

“Lori!” The young gnome shrieked in his excitement and he grabbed her hand quickly in two of his. “Oh it is a pleasure to see you.”

“And you, my friend. I am sorry I've not come by before.”

Despite living only a few streets away from one another for over a month, the two comrades had not crossed paths. As an apprentice at the tower, Milo was under constant demand to accomplish menial tasks and answer the calls of any higher level mages who needed his assistance. The process was an important aspect of an apprentice's education but it was not the most enjoyable and Milo had very little time to devote to his own exploits. Valoria only knew of his living in the city through correspondence that he diligently kept with her, Ellona, and Fermir.

“Think nothing of it, in truth I highly doubt I'd have time to entertain friends,” he glanced around quickly to make sure that no master-level wizards were within range of catching him slacking. “But it seems I have a few minutes now. How are you?”

“I'm very well, but I don’t want to get you into any trouble by chatting too long. As it is, I didn’t just come to say hello,” she reached inside of her satchel and withdrew the jade ring. “I need to know what sort of ring this is.”

Milo turned his head in curiosity and plucked the jewel from her fingers, carefully examining the rune upon the gem and the shape of the band. Valoria could see how his eyes dilated in his excitement and she could imagine the gears in the tinker's brain working to solve this delightful new puzzle.

“Hmm,” he mumbled. “This is problematic, my friend. The rune here appears to be Eredic, or Demonic. I know of no mages who can speak the language, but perhaps a warlock might.”

Valoria heaved an agitated sigh. “Not a warlock. I hate warlocks. Perverts, all of them.”

Milo shrugged apologetically and placed the ring back in her hand. “I'm sorry that I couldn’t be of more help.”

Valoria shook her head at his apology. “If it is Demonic, does that make it dangerous?” She asked, slipping it back into her satchel.

“Not necessarily. It is certainly very powerful, whatever it is, but it mightn’t be malicious. Many magical items simply give the wearer various strengths. Where did you come across it?”

Valoria hesitated. “A necromancer.”

Milo frowned, clearly disconcerted. “Well in that case, be wary of it, Lori. I am certain that it is a rare gem, but you best not wear it if you aren’t sure what it will do.”

“That is sound advice,” she looked around to see that the other apprentices had finished up with the mess hall and were on their way out. Milo noticed as well and sighed.

“I'm terribly sorry, my friend, but I fear I must return to my duties.”

Valoria smiled and ruffled his precisely manicured fohawk. “Don’t be, I'm very proud of you,” she said warmly. “I'll write soon,” and she turned on her heel to slip back out of the tower the same way she'd come in.

 

That evening Valoria stayed in, drinking from her private store and performing a rarity: cooking for herself. She sat in one of the low armchairs before the fireplace with her feet up on an ottoman and several sheets of paper opened on her lap, and a plate of pan-seared salmon on the parlor table. The notes and journals that she'd taken from Morbent Fel's were cryptic and layered in ramblings of a deluded mind, but they made for an interesting evening read and she had decided that they were a fair place to look for clues about the mysterious ring.

As the fire waned though and her wine glass emptied, she grew weary of deciphering the necromancer's foul writings and finally tucked them all away on one of the many bookshelves that adorned her walls and made for bed, blowing out the lights as she did. When she stripped down she paused to examine the bruise left upon the nipple of her breast from the night before. Valoria was very fond of her breasts, vainly pleased with their size and soft shape and she was loath to suffer an injury to what was one of her favorite features. She sighed under her breath at the mark, thinking dourly that it wasn’t even the mark of a successful conquest, and she pulled back on her workman's shirt so that she wouldn’t need to look at the bruise again. She also put the necklace back around her neck and made sure that the windows were locked and secure before settling into her covers.

 

It was well past midnight when Valoria awoke, alert in an instant, her ears seeking out what had pulled her from her dreaming. There was a soft 'click' from somewhere in the apartment and she realized that the front door had opened.

'You have to be kidding me,' she thought to herself and carefully swung her legs over the bed. Hanging over the headstand of her bed was the military saber given to her by sergeant Jameson, as a token of their... friendship; Valoria carefully lifted it from the hook that held just beneath the pommel and unsheathed it. Standing with her back against the wall beside the doorway into her bedchamber, Valoria waited, listening for sounds of movement.

The intruder was silent, but in the darkness Valoria could allow her instincts to take over; the same instincts that had pulled her from her bed to begin with, and she felt rather than heard the figure just outside the doorway. As it entered the threshold she flung the blade out just below the neck, stopping the intruder in his tracks.

“Not another move,” she said quietly and stepped in front of the figure so that she faced them directly. Her blade still outstretched, she leaned forward quickly and tugged down the hood that covered the intruder's lower face. The thief from the night before stared back at her, black paint wiped across her eyes. “You cant really be this foolish,” Valoria said, exasperated.

The thief shrugged. “I'm merely persistent. Give me the bauble and I'll leave you be.”

Valoria sneered. “That is not going to happ-” the thief dropped a small object like a marble from her pocket which snapped loudly on the floor and the air suddenly filled with the smell of sulfur as a thick gray mist burst to permeate the room. Valoria instinctively covered her nose and in the second of her distraction she felt a blade brush against hers, pushing her back into _en garde_. In the mist she felt a beat attack at the tip of her blade and she took another step backwards, unwilling to fight in such thick cloud against what clearly felt to be a well trained swordsman.

Suddenly the thief made an advance lunge which Valoria had to parry aside and she felt her temper rise. She ground her teeth and furiously advanced, pushing through the mist that was beginning to dissipate and seeking the body behind the blade. The thief back-stepped this time and Valoria followed her out of the bedchamber and into the main room, their blades meeting in quick strikes that pinged loudly in the still night. Now that Valoria could see better, she realized that the thief had brought along a shorter fighting blade, which she was using with surprising skill as a dueling épée. Her gaze shifted from the blade back to the thief's black-painted eyes and despite the offensiveness of the situation, Valoria found she was somewhat pleased. It had been more than a month since her last good fight, and she'd not had a proper duel in ages. Her warrior spirit was lighted and she gripped her saber with concealed relish. 

The blades flashed out at one another in the moonlight as both swordsmen made forward and backwards steps, parrying aside lunges and thrusts and narrowly missing deadly blows on either side. Valoria's style was aggressive, as was all of her fighting skills, but the thief used a much more subtle approach, continually pulling Valoria into false attacks and then putting her on the defensive again.

Before long, Valoria felt sweat on her brow and her hair, wild and loose, was sticking to the sides of her face. The thief too was tiring, but her features were set and focused; she neither mocked the touches she made on Valoria nor gasped when she was likewise cut but fought on with a steady resolve. One thing that Valoria had ever to her advantage however was her stamina, and finally it was becoming clear to both the warrior and the thief that she would not be able to match Valoria in this.

Suddenly the thief made a sloppy advance, her weariness clear in her straining arms, and Valoria used the other's mistake to stomp into a jump-lunge, forcing the thief to disengage and leap backwards, where her back came against the wall. Valoria pressed her advantage, bringing a sharp downward swing onto the other's blade so hard that it shivered out of her hand. Exultant, Valoria pressed swiftly forward, pushing the base of her sword against the thief's throat to pin her against the wall.

“Point,” she panted viciously but to her surprise, the thief didn’t cry out in pain or beg for her life in fear. Instead, her dark eyes were lit up with strange excitement and Valoria noted how her cheeks were bright from the thrill of a good fight, adrenaline drumming through her veins the same as it did through the warrior's. Unbidden, a memory of the night before surged to Valoria's mind: the phantom feeling of a tongue flicking over her breast and the burning that it had filled her with. Valoria found her eyes falling to the thief's mouth, her bow-shaped lips open and gasping for breath and for a reason she could not explain, Valoria leaned her mouth down against the thief's.

The thief's reaction was immediate: her lips pressed against Valoria's with ferocious force, her tongue filling Valoria's mouth, and the sword clattered to floor between them. The fire of Valoria's battle re-surged, driving her body against the other woman's. She pressed the thief harder against the wall and her hands moved down the stitching of her black leather armor to her hips, pulling the woman's legs up and around her waist. The warrior was completely overtaken by this sudden and overwhelming passion and the thief obligingly wrapped her leg firmly around Valoria's hips, letting Valoria's hands explore for the buckles that held the woman's harness in place. The thief's hands moved as well, one wrapping around Valoria's shoulders while the other snaked downwards, and it moved suddenly to grasp something from behind the thief's back.

Valoria felt the cool of steel suddenly against her throat and she slowly pulled her lips from the other's, looking down at the dagger pointed at her neck and then back at the black eyes of the woman.

“The bauble,” the thief whispered, her voice thick.

Valoria let a long breath out through her nostrils, feeling her temper quicken, and she lifted her chin so that the blade had a clear aim at her throat. The thief took a measured breath as well and then slit the cord in two, letting the ring fall into her palm.

“Take a step backwards,” she ordered and Valoria did so with a look that would have quaked a weaker soul. The thief ran the toe of her boot under the fallen sword pommel and kicked the blade into the air, catching it by the hilt and turning it at Valoria as well. “Don’t follow me,” she said firmly and eased backwards for the door. Valoria made no move but her eyes did not leave the thief's until she had slipped out of the doorway and into the night of Stormwind.

For a long moment Valoria stood stock still, her fists clenched at her sides, taking in slow, even breaths. After a very long minute, she turned and walked stiffly back to her bedchamber, and if there had been a door she'd have slammed it broke.

 

At dawn, Valoria rose from a restless sleep and made for the Old Town district of the city and the Alliance Command Center that was housed in the far edge of the quarter. Here stood the barracks for the city guards, who were privy to their own training grounds and Valoria spent most of the morning making good use of them. After a few hours of calisthenics and several quick bouts with some of the guards who mistook Valoria's lack of military insignia as sign of being a poor fighter, she felt much more relaxed about the events of the night before and turned homeward around noon.

After another long bath she sat once more in her armchair and returned to her perusal of Morbent Fel's manuscripts, which was becoming an increasingly tedious task and helped to keep her mind from berating her foolish behavior from the previous night, which had left her both ashamed and furious. Her inability to deny herself fleeting desires had long been one of her greatest failings and she felt disconcerted to realize she was still so weak-willed.

Meanwhile, in the manuscripts, she found over and over again brief and enigmatic references in Morbent's letters to the Master of the Tower, and one journal entry in particular that left her with a foul taste in her mouth.

_'Day seven of the high winter moon, c. 27: Visited today by the riders. A. asked about the state of West Fall. What the bloody fel do I know of West Fall? I told him what would please him. He asked me if Wrynn thought the high elves his ally. I told him the high elves were dead. He laughed and said no more.'_

Valoria closed the journal and leaned back into her chair, her brow furrowed as she stared into the fire. The high elves had once been allies to Lordaeron, but during the Third War their homeland of Quel'thalas in the north had been devastated by the Scourge and their kingdom shattered. The humans had refused to help those that survived and turned on them when the high elves made allies with the Naga. It was assumed that any of the high elves that remained were scattered and destitute across Azeroth, with their city laid to rubble. But the passage in the journal, as slight as it was, was curious all the same. And if the riders which the entry referred to were the Black Riders, why were they interested in the Westfall? Not for the first time, Valoria wished that she knew what lay in the white tower in Deadwind Pass.

The warrior sighed and closed the journal and rubbed her eyes. She'd had a poor sleep the night before and all of this mystery surrounding the journals and the emerald ring had given her a headache. She was sorry that she'd ever bothered to research the damn jewel in the first place, and in fact she'd have likely been better off leaving the ring on Morbent Fel's hand to begin with. She rose and tossed the journal onto her chair and went to check that the front door was securely locked, as well as each of her windows. It was not very late but it was dark enough to sleep and she had had enough of necromancers and their jewels.

Stripping into her underskivs and a night shirt, she slipped into her bed and lay with her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling in the dark. There was something about that damned journal that wouldn’t let her rest and she felt sure that she had missed something important, though why there should be anything in there important to her she couldn’t fathom. It was more of an instinctual urging in her stomach, and she had only survived this long on following her instincts. She decided finally that in the morning she should write to Ellona in Darkshire and have her ride up for a visit and perhaps they might find something in the manuscripts together. With a course of action decided upon, she was finally able to drift off to sleep with a cleared mind.

 

There was someone in the room. Valoria started, grabbing for a fighting dagger she'd laid beneath her pillow and looked about the chamber wildly. Her sight fell at once upon the figure standing casually at the foot of her bed, dressed in soft black leathers and eying her coyly.

“You!” Valoria growled in disbelief. The thief, against all reason, had returned.

“Yes,” she answered and slid a black hood from her head, then ran a hand through her shaggy-cut black hair.

“How the fel do you keep getting into my house?!” Valoria demanded, irate.

The thief cocked a sardonic eyebrow at her that made Valoria redden and she bit her tongue. She wasn’t used to others making her feel foolish. “Why are you here now?” She grimaced, her dagger firm in her grip.

The thief hesitated, then took a slow step towards her. “I wanted to apologize.”

Valoria stared back at her scornfully. “Apologize? You robbed me, and so you broke into my house, again, in the dead of night, to apologize?”

“I knocked at first, but you turn in quite early. Like an old woman.”

Valoria reddened even darker with repressed fury and the thief almost smiled at her discomfort.

“I wanted you to know that it wasn’t personal, robbing you. It was a job, and I took it.”

Something about the thief's tone made Valoria want to believe her, but she still stared skeptically. “Who was the job for?”

The thief shook her head. “I cannot tell you that. I have a reputation, and such. You understand.”

Valoria scoffed and looked away, still hardly believing that this thief had dared to return. She was fortunate that Valoria hadn’t already made worgen bait of her. “Very well. You've apologized. You can leave now.”

The thief didn’t move and Valoria shot her a look. She saw that the woman was looking at her in earnest, as if trying to make up her mind about something. Finally she took another slow step towards her. “My name is Raj.”

Valoria blinked. “Why are you telling me this?” She asked finally.

The woman named Raj took another step forward and was standing at the edge of Valoria's bed, looking down at her. Valoria sat, tense and unsure, her knuckles white on the dagger she gripped.

“Because, I didn’t just come here to apologize,” she said softly and leaned down to kiss Valoria, who against her better judgment, let her. When she pulled away, Valoria swallowed and shook her head.

“I can't trust you.”

Raj nodded and kissed her again, crawling onto the bed. “I know,” she breathed, her hands running up Valoria's sinewy shoulders. The heat from the night before surged into Valoria's veins again and she was caught between her mistrust of this creature and her unreasoning desire for her. Raj's lips moved from Valoria's and trailed across her chin and down her throat and Valoria felt teeth need gently at her skin. The warrior sighed in sudden resignation and wrapped her arm around Raj's waist, then rolled her over beneath her. They shared a brief glance, a mutual understanding passing between them, and then Valoria pushed her mouth against hers.


	6. Embarking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no affiliation whatsoever with Blizzard Entertainment or World of Warcraft. I have no connection to or ownership of the universe or lore. This is a fanfiction.

Embarking

The trees in Stormwind City were beginning to fade from their summer green into the yellows and oranges of autumn as the breeze grew cool and the city planners started to decorate for Brewfest; the fall ale festival which was a favorite event of Valoria's. This year however, she hardly payed attention at all to the revelers who were importing cask after cask of ale from all over Khaz Modan into the city's taverns, and instead all of her focus had become set on to the puzzle she had at first found in the journals of Morbent Fel.

What had begun as a mild distraction from her inquiries into the military had become an engrossing subject, filling her time and thoughts as she began a process of deciphering the writings of the dark wizard and trying to gleam everything she could of the Black Riders, the Master of the Tower, and what their interest was in the Kingdom of Stormwind. By the time of the actual festival, Valoria had come to a decision and she prepared to put certain plans into motion. So it was that on the first eve of Brewfest, Milo Temperspark sat opposite her in one of the low arm chairs, studying the maps that Valoria had laid on a parlor table before them.

“Hmm...” he tapped his whiskered chin in thought. Milo had shaved off his mustaches and was now growing a single goat-beard from his shallow chin, which Valoria thought suited him much better. She had a feeling that his change in hair style had something to do with a romantic interest in the tower but she made no inquiries. “So, we would land here?” He pointed with a squat finger to a spot on the map and Valoria nodded, sliding him a hot cup of coffee.

“Aye. The voyage should take no more than a week, and I've a ship in mind.”

Milo's pink eyes trailed over the markings that she had made. “I must say Lori, I'm intrigued. No one has tried such a thing, as far as I know. And there is so much we might learn.”

“I know,” Valoria leaned back in her chair and sipped at her own mug. “Not to mention the wealth that might still lie in those rooms.”

Milo nodded, brooding over the maps. “It is dangerous though. This is enemy territory.”

“Which is why I would need a powerful mage at my side,” Valoria grinned at him and he blushed with pride.

A soft tapping at the front door pulled both of their attention to see a slight figure standing at the threshold.

“Oh,” Raj looked in surprise at the gnome. “I did not realize you had a guest,” she said cautiously.

Milo looked at the woman with just as much curiosity and Valoria stood. “I do have friends other than you,” she remarked dryly and waved her into the room. “Raj, this is Milovich Temperspark,”

“The fourth.”

Valoria rolled her eyes. “Milovich Temperspark the Fourth. He's a good friend of mine,” she looked at the gnome. “This is Raj, she's... sort of my nightingale,” Valoria took a kettle off its hook near the fire and went to pour a third cup of coffee.

Milo, who clearly had no idea what Valoria meant by the comment, trotted up to Raj and offered her his hand to shake. “A pleasure. Any, uh, friend of Valoria's is most certainly a friend to me,” he said cheerfully and Raj offered him a thin but polite smile. He looked back at Valoria. “In truth, I think I should be leaving now, I only have tonight off from the tower and I'd certainly like a chance to see some of the festivities.”

Valoria nodded. “Yes, of course. I will let you know what the others say. And you'll ask your masters?”

Milo nodded, his large gnome ears flapping. “Certainly. Good faring on your trip!” He nodded politely to Raj and donned his violet wizard's hat and cloak and left to join the city in its gaiety.

Once he had closed the door, Valoria handed Raj her coffee and the thief gave her a suspicious glance. “You're going on a trip?”

“Aye, in the morning. I'm glad you came tonight so I could tell you myself instead of leaving a note.”

For weeks now, Raj had been an occasional companion to Valoria, arriving always after dark and never staying as long as dawn. Her visits were never announced, and often times she woke Valoria from deep dreaming and left after she had fallen back to sleep. Raj had proven to be enigmatic, offering little information about herself and asking none from Valoria and the irregularity of her arrivals was something that Valoria had quickly realized could not be negotiated. At times, she would visit every night a week and at others there would be no word from her for days on end, and it pleased Valoria on an inner level to finally have surprised Raj instead. Typically, Valoria was not one to have patience for the sort of casual, obscure relationship she had formed with Raj, however there was something intoxicating about the creature which kept Valoria's interest.

“Where will you go?” Raj asked mildly, taking Milo's seat and looking at the maps laid out on the parlor table, which Valoria quickly snatched out of view.

“To Darkshire for a day or two, and then to Ironforge for a week and a bit. I've business in both, and if things go well, I might have more business afterwards.”

Raj leaned back in the chair and laid down her mug of coffee, hardly touched. “What sort of business?”

Valoria shrugged. “I wont bother mentioning it until it is substantial, but once it is, I'll be leaving for a good deal longer than two weeks.”

Raj raised a dark, fine eyebrow. “You are being quite vague, its not like you.”

Valoria chuckled. “Says the woman who wont even tell me her favorite color,” she stood and, grabbing Raj's hand, pulled her up and into her embrace.

Raj gave a rare laugh and kissed her. “It's red. I like red.”

“I'd bet you look charming in red.”

 

Valoria was gone for fifteen days and when she stepped off the Deeprun Tram in the Dwarven District of Stormwind it was late day and autumn had hit the city in full force. She breathed in the smoke and steam of the district forges, the banging of hammers and groaning of bellows filling her ears and magnifying her headache to unbearable proportions. The Deeprun Tram was an underground train engineered and ran by the gnomes of Tinker Town, which connected the cities of Ironforge and Stormwind. Although a marvel of technology and ingenuity, it was also an hour of clattering, clanking, heaving discomfort in the hot steamy depths of the tunnel running beneath the southern Khaz mountains and did not make for pleasant travel.

Valoria shouldered her pack, which aside from her light travel clothes included her newly fitted set of armor fresh from the Great Forge itself, and quickly left the noise and filth of the Dwarven District behind her and continued across the canal city to her apartment in the Mage Quarter. There was still a lot for her to prepare and she had little time to do it in.

Once home, she flung her gear unceremoniously on the bed and turned immediately to run a bath, stripping out of her travel clothes and thankfully dipping into the wooden tub. She had just gotten comfortable when a rapping sounded on the washroom door, making Valoria start.

“The fel!?” She grabbed a long handled scrub brush to turn into a hasty weapon but the voice that called from the other side was familiar.

Raj opened the door and raised an amused eyebrow at the warrior; sudsy, nude, and wielding a terrifying brush.

“Damnit woman, what are you doing here?” Valoria seethed and laid back into the water. It was still light outside and Valoria had never to her recollection seen Raj before dusk.

Raj leaned on the door frame and Valoria noted that she was wearing street clothes: blue trousers tucked into tall fawn boots and a loose red blouse, which unsurprisingly looked very good with her rich olive skin, dark choppy locks and black eyes.

“I'll leave if you like,” she said simply and Valoria sighed.

“That's not what I meant. I'm glad you're here, I want to talk to you about something.”

“Your mysterious business?”

Valoria nodded and ran her hands through her wet curls. “Aye. I met with my comrades in Duskwood and Kharanos to finalize my plans. We will leave in three mornings for the north, on an expedition into the Tirisfal Glades,” she said without preamble. “I want you to come with.”

Raj frowned. “The Tirisfal Glades? But that's on the outskirts of Lordaeron...”

“Aye, it is. There is an old monastery there, which was once a gem of Lordaeron. Now it is overrun by fanatical cultists bearing the name Scarlet Crusade. They are intent on eliminating all life that isn’t human, starting with the Forsaken. I mean to venture into that monastery.”

Raj stared at her, aghast. “W-why? That's an insane quest! You'd be within sight of the undead city-”

“Which is why I need a skilled tracker and scout, someone good with locks, who can help me across enemy territory and into the monastery,” she gazed evenly at her. “I need you.”

Raj tore her eyes from Valoria's and stared hard at the floor, and the warrior could see that she was running over the idea, adding up the risks and weighing the possibilities. For a long time she did not answer but finally she straightened.

“You said that you couldn’t trust me.”

Valoria looked at her in earnest. “I want very badly to. Becoming one of my team would be you proving that I can.”

Raj shook her head. “I am not a freelancer. I have a boss, as it were. I perform the missions he gives me.”

“I can hire you if it's that. I'm already writing letters of request to the Wizard's Sanctum to get Milo out of a month or more of duties, I can write another.”

Raj snorted and shook her head, looking away again. “It isn’t that sort of operation,” she hesitated. “I don’t know that I can join you,” she said softly and Valoria bit her tongue, disappointed.

“Very well. But if you change your mind, I've arranged for a boat from Booty Bay to pick us up on the shore outside of Stormwind at dawn three days from today.”

Raj nodded and turned to leave.

“Raj,” Valoria called. “Wont you stay for a bath?”

The rogue shook her head. “I'm afraid that I've things to attend to,” she said over her shoulder and without another word she left the apartment, leaving Valoria to brood in her tub alone.

 

Three days flew by: Valoria had her charts finalized and she'd organized the supplies which she thought she was sure to need; she oiled her new armor and made sure her axes were sharpened to a deadly sheen. She wrote and sent her letter of request for Milo's sabbatical and made sure that her rent for the apartment was paid up for a full six months, which made the gnome woman whom she rented from positively giddy. On the final morning she rose early and pulled on her light travel clothes: a shirt and gray wool sweater, light pants and sturdy boots and dark scarf. Autumn in the south was not too harsh but she knew that once the ship past the equator the weather would turn for the worst, at least as far as she was concerned.

She left the apartment dark and locked tight, and just in case, there was a letter with Raj's name on the parlor table. Valoria walked through the darkened Mage Quarter and saw not a soul, it was far too early for any reasonable person to be out of bed, and she found Milo waiting for her sitting on top of his bag at the foot of the mage tower. He yawned up at her and waved good morning and started to rise but Valoria motioned for him to not bother.

“Ellona was to meet us here at the tower,” she said and looked around the darkened quarter.

“Are you sure? It's a bit early to be traveling into the city.”

“Yes, it is,” Ellona's stern voice called from the shadowed pathway and she strolled into the light of the lamppost. “But the fewer eyes that see my steps, the better,” the night elf smiled on the two of them and Milo jumped to his feet, a wide grin across his face.

“Lona!” He cried in glee and she bent to hug the gnome.

“It is good to see you again, little one.”

“And you! I was so thrilled when Valoria said you'd be joining us!”

Ellona chuckled. Milo had a way of making anyone he met feel important. Valoria tousled the gnome's hair.

“We cant very well go on an adventure of this magnitude without a priest to cover our backs,” she reached forward and clasped Ellona's hand in a welcoming handshake and looked the priestess over, thinking to herself how odd to see an elf age so much in less than a year; even a half-elf.

The elves had lost their immortality with the sacrifice of the world tree nearly five years ago, becoming as subject to the passing of time as the rest of the living world. Because of her mixed lineage, Ellona would not have lived the life of an immortal anyway, but her elven blood was now aging along with her human and what Valoria looked upon was a woman seemingly in her early thirties. But it wasn’t simply the tell of years upon her face, it was something to Ellona's demeanor, her bearing, that implied her age. She was strong and firm, much more so than the woman who had ambushed the warrior in the forests of Duskwood two seasons ago. The hand that gripped her sickle-topped staff was steady, her voice confident. She wore the priestess vestments with pride but also utility: Valoria noticed that she'd taken care to have the white and violet robes trimmed high, and slit for easy movement, and her boots and gloves were of a strong cloth, embroidered with holy symbols of power. Looking at her, Valoria saw a much more ready partner than she'd had some six months ago and she was pleased for it. She had no second guesses in the team she'd chosen for herself, but it was comforting still to know that their past experiences had made their mark on her friends- hopefully for the better.

“Well since we are assembled, lets make for the coast and see if we can't find Fermir,” she decided promptly and they shouldered their packs and walked on through the early dawn, their first steps towards a grand adventure they yet knew the value of.

 

Stormwind City was a fortification, first and foremost, and so there were few exits along the outer curtain wall that girded the city from the coastline, but Valoria had made an arrangement with a member of the City Guard beforehand and they were able to go along one of the guard passages that led them to the top of an outlying drum tower. From here, the guard allowed Valoria to produce a rope ladder which they tied down to the parapet wall and one by one they all three climbed down and out of the city. When there was firm rock beneath their feet, the guard made a gesture of farewell to Valoria and tossed down the ladder, then walked whistling back to his post with his pocket a bit heavier than his fellows'.

“You know,” Milo mused as they walked the hundred yards downhill to the coastline. “There's talk of the city building a harbor.”

“Indeed?” Ellona asked.

“Quite so. A few of the magi at the tower are working in tangent with the state architects on the project. Makers know when it'll even start however, humans are preposterously slow to progress.”

“That's because they'd rather have every possible outcome planned ahead of time, rather than gnomes who prefer to solve in hindsight,” Valoria snorted. “However, it is about damn time the city puts in a wharf. Who ever heard of a coastal city without a harbor?”

“At least we gnomes aren’t afraid of technology,” Milo pressed, his ire lighted.

Valoria rolled her eyes. “Nor are you afraid of blowing yourselves to Hyjal.”

“I'll have you know that-”

“Please, friends,” Ellona cut in quickly. “It's far too early to be debating cultural achievements. Elune's light, we've not even started this expedition and there's bickering,” she rolled her eyes heavenwards.

Valoria cleared her throat. “Point taken, El.”

Milo shrugged and nodded his mutual abandonment of the topic and they arrived on the coastline to see Fermir sitting on a stone in the fading starlight, a pipe lit in his hands and his eyes upon the horizon, where the barest mention of the sun was beginning to brim. Curled around his feet to keep them warm was Bara, vigilant even at rest.

“Ach, finally made it did ye?” He turned and asked when a soft growl from the leopard informed him of the others' presence.

“Morning, my friend,” Valoria yawned and clapped her hand on the dwarf's shoulder in greeting. Milo stomped forward for a hug and Ellona placed her hands together in front of her breast and bowed her head, which was the preferred night elf gesture of goodwill.

“Mornin' yerself, lass. Now where in blazes is this ship of yers?”

Valoria looked out upon the lapping waters of the Great Sea and turned her eye southwards. “Damnit Nyx, some things never change,” she muttered under her breath. “It'll be here,” she sighed and pulled out her own pipe to light. Fermir politely produced a match and just as he struck it Milo cried out in excitement,

“Oh, a ship, a ship!”

Coming around the southern bend of the coastline was a yellow light, bobbing with the crash of the waves and as it drew nearer they could see that it indeed marked the boom of a ship, black against the predawn. Seeing it, Valoria dropped her pack and rummaged around inside, reaching her arm in nearly to her shoulder, and finally pulled out a simple lantern. She grabbed another match from Fermir's box and quickly lit the wick, then held the lamp overhead facing the ship. The sloop that approached was near sixty feet of wood, rope and sails, fastened together in an ungainly fashion and looking to be of southern design.

“This is the ship you've hired?” Ellona sounded less than impressed.

Valoria shrugged. “The price was right.”

“What precisely is the price of our drowning?”

“Higher than the price of your grousing,” Valoria shot her a sideways glare and Ellona harrumphed. On the deck they could see several figures moving about to bring the ship to halt but the morning was far too dim to make out faces and the sloop cast off anchor some twenty yards offshore. A tiny raft was eased down from the deck and it landed in the water with a quiet plop. A squat figure lowered itself into the lifeboat and began to row towards the waiting party and in the light of the lantern Valoria could see that the figure was dwarf man, his hair and beard the color of hearthfire.

“Top of the morning to ye!” He called out amicably as the dingy approached.

“And to you, master dwarf,” Valoria called back with a wave.

Fermir stood with his fists on his hips. “Well met, brother dwarf.”

“Ach, a brother of Khaz Modan is it?” The red-bearded dwarf asked. “Good to see a fellow son of Ironforge! Tell me, 'ave ye any pipeweed on ye, brother? I've been smoking gobleaf fer a fortnight and it aint doin much fer my temper.”

“Ha! Gobleaf? Ye poor bastard,” Fermir grinned as he bent to help pull the lifeboat to shore. “I've some Modan green that'll set you right as rain, my friend,” he stuck out his hand. “Fermir Thunderbrew at yer service.”

The red-bearded dwarf was dressed in the loose fitting outfit of a sailor and though Valoria always had a difficult time in discerning a dwarf's age, she thought that he seemed to be just a bit older that Fermir. “Thunderbrew? Always a pleasure to come across a Thunderbrew! I'm Thunaraz of clan Stormpike, but most just call me Thun,” the dwarf stepped out of the boat into the sand and looked up at the group. “All right then, the Captain said there'd be five of ye, are we still waitin fer someone?”

Ellona, Milo and Fermir all looked curiously at Valoria, who shook her head quickly. “No, this is it. Let's get on our way,” and she nodded towards the dingy. Thunaraz shrugged and the group boarded the tiny craft, which lowered with each additional body, making Valoria slightly nervous. When they were all seated with their packs stored on their laps (Bara was sitting anxiously in Fermir's lap and he had to stow his pack under his seat) Thunaraz pulled up the small anchor and took up the oars.

“Oh my,” Milo said suddenly, his head cocked to the side as he looked behind them up at Stormwind. “What do you make of that?” He pointed towards the city wall and when the others looked they saw a slight figure climbing swiftly down the shore-facing side of the battlement.

Valoria squinted to see in the dim light then her face broke into pleased grin. “I think that might be our fifth.”

“Eh?” Fermir grumbled as the figure raced down the shoreline.

“What fifth?” Ellona demanded crossly. The figure broke into the light of the lamp and just as the boat was breaking off into the waves it leaped into water and climbed quickly into the crowded dingy, causing the vessel to sway heavily.

Raj was dressed in her heavy black leathers, her head hooded and a cloth scarf wrapped over her mouth, which she pulled down with a gloved hand. “Quick now,” she insisted.

“You heard the woman,” Valoria said casually and looked at Thunaraz, who was glancing from the black-garbed figure to the warrior with surprise.

“... Right,” he said with a shrug and heaved forward with the oars, letting the power of his stout chest and legs drive them through the waves.

“An' who by fel are you?” Fermir interrogated; Bara lifted her lips and hissed meanly, blaming the sudden rocking of the dingy on this new comer. 

“Raj,” she answered, meeting the hunter's eyes and avoiding the cat's, and she nodded at Valoria. “V invited me.”

The gnome, elf, and dwarf all looked to Valoria, who nodded to reassure them. “Team, meet our new scout,” and she quickly introduced them all to Raj, who nodded shortly to each. Milo, who had already met Raj briefly once before, decided that she was to be immediately considered a friend and shook her hand with great enthusiasm.

The dingy drew upon the sloop quickly and Thunaraz fastened her down while the rest clambered up the ladder hanging from the gunwale, with Valoria first. Once aboard, she quickly bent down for Fermir to hand the trembling Bara up towards her and as soon as the leopard felt something solid beneath her feet she took off for the first dark enclosed space she could find.

“A'hoy mates, and welcome aboard the Emeraldshard,” a voice called musically from the quarter deck and Valoria looked up to see the lithe figure of a night elf woman standing cockney-stanced upon the deck, a chocolate cavalier hat with a green plumb upon her head and a brown captain's coat to match. At the woman's waist was a cutlass and toothpick and she wore high-heeled boots that made her a towering figure upon the deck. Her night-blue hair was cut short and messy beneath her hat and across her dusky skin were the markings of the wild druid.

“Nyxiana Windborne,” Valoria grinned hugely and saluted.

“At your service,” the night elf grinned back and bowed with great showmanship.

Valoria turned to her team. “Nyxiana-”

“Captain Windborne,” she corrected with a coyly raised eyebrow and Valoria sighed through her teeth.

“Captain Windborne, this is my team. Fermir Thunderbrew, Milovich Temperspark the fourth, Ellona Dawnfell, and Raj Nightingale. Team, this is Captain Windborne.”

The captain nodded graciously at each. “Good to have you all aboard. My first mate, Thun, whom you've already met, will show you to your berth and we'll be off,” she turned and shouted sharp orders to her two deckhands, who swiftly moved to act.

Valoria turned to Fermir and handed him her pack. “Would you mind? I need a word with the captain.”

Fermir looked crossly from the bag to Valoria, who smirked at him, and he took it with a sarcastic glare. “This'll be a long trip, I can see,” he muttered and followed after Ellona, Milo, and first mate Thunaraz. Raj hung back a moment, holding her bag over her shoulder.

“Nightingale?” She asked with a wry smile.

Valoria winked at her. “I had to come up with something, since you pretend to have no surname.”

“Something we have in common,” she answered smartly and turned on her heel to follow after the rest but Valoria called her back.

“I didn’t think you'd be able to make it,” she said, her voice lowered.

Raj glanced subconsciously at the shore. “Well, I suppose I was able to pull a string or two,” she looked back at Valoria. “I had better become plenty rich off this venture of yours.”

Valoria grinned. “As should we all,” and she turned to climb the ladder to meet Nyxiana upon the quarter deck. The Captain quickly took her into a firm hug, which Valoria returned awkwardly. “You look godsdamned ridiculous,” she laughed.

Nyxiana's high cheekbones brightened some but she haughtily turned her nose upwards. “I look smashing, you're simply jealous.”

“That... is partially true,” she said, and eyed Nyxiana's fine leather boots. “And where did you find this thing?” She waved at the ship.

“This thing, is a sixty-five foot fore-and -aft rigged Cape sloop, and she can hit eleven knots if it pleases her. I got her for a song at the Booty Bay auction house and I'll sell her for twice what I paid, goddess as witness.”

Valoria laughed. “Beware the back handed and honey tongued.”

“Beware Nyxiana Windborne,” the Captain winked wisely. “I'll make the sale once I finish this voyage, and then I'll have her.”

“The ship that you wrote me about?”

“Aye,” the Captian's voice took on a dreamy quality as she gazed out over the ocean before them, where the sloop was turning as they spoke, guided by Nyxiana's short handed crew. “She's beautiful, V. A two-masted schooner, quick and light. You should see her at moor, positively crying out for the open sea. I've already named her: Duskrunner. I'll build my trading empire on her back.”

Valoria smirked. “If ever I could imagine a trading mogul with no nautical or mercantile experience, it'd be you, Nyx.”

Nyxiana narrowed her eyes at her friend and pursed her lips. “You're quite the fork-tongued rogue this morning. Why not lay your venom aside and help my crew: learn a thing about hard-work.”

Valoria laughed and shrugged. “Aye, Captain,” and she knuckled her brow and turned to find First Mate Thunaraz.

 

The cruise northwards up the coast of the Eastern Kingdoms lasted six days and was one of the most pleasant voyages Valoria had ever taken. They stayed close to the shoreline, keeping the mountainous coast always at their starboard as they left behind the blue waters of the south and entered into the green currents of Baradin Bay. Unbeknownst to the rest of Valoria's team, this was in fact the first full voyage by Nyxiana and her crew and so they remained close to the coast in lieu of braving the treacherous open waters.

At the Captain's suggestion, and because she found the work interesting, Valoria followed around the trained deckhands, two young human men named Mortimer and Galvus who enjoyed sailing almost as much as they enjoyed pulling pranks upon one another, and the antics of the lads became a source of hilarity for the entire ship. The sandy-haired boys showed Valoria how to properly belay a line, how to strap and release the sails in order to bring a ship to and how to keep the sloop on its bearing. Valoria, who had only ever been on a ship as a leisure guest, found the various tasks daunting but challenging and she took the mocking from the lads at her 'landlubber ways' with good sport.

The rest of the team spent their time in idle pursuits: Fermir had cleverly brought along a sturdy pole for fishing, which he let troll along behind the ship with mixed success while Bara, who became accustomed to the swaying of the ship by the second day, lounged upon the deck in the sunlight with her full attention on the taught line. Ellona used the spare time that the voyage gave her to meditate and in the afternoons she and Valoria would discuss the newest on her on-going investigation of Duskwood and the Black Riders. Milo had brought his alchemy set and the Captain graciously allowed him to set it up in the galley. Finally free of the constant demands of the wizard's sanctum, he became quickly absorbed with experiments that he'd been longing to explore. The newest member of the team read. Valoria had never realized before what an avid reader Raj was, but now she spent most of her hours tucked into the crow's nest under the pretense of keeping a lookout, with her nose stuck in a new book nearly every day.

In the mornings, both Raj and Valoria proved to be the only people aboard who were terribly concerned with maintaining a level of athleticism and the two made the most they could of the limited deck space with climbing the rigging, short sprints, and any other calisthenics they could find room to do. When they decided one morning to test their steel and drew blades, Galvus made the mistake of sounding out one of his ridiculing whistles.

Raj ignored the lad, but Valoria couldn’t help herself and she cocked her head at the sailor. 

“You fancy yourself a swordsman, do you?”

Galvus tied off the line he'd been holding and puffed out his chest for Mortimer's benefit. “I know how to handle a blade,” and he winked. “If you get my meanin'.”

Valoria bit her tongue and Raj looked out at the sea to cover her laugh. “I'm sure you do,” Valoria nodded, and tossed him her saber. “Why not show Raj here what you know? It might come in handy for her.”

Galvus caught the blade by the hilt and eyed Raj, who looked back at him as subdued as a kitten. The young sailor leered at the rogue and strutted to square off with her, then raised the sword and said, “En garde!”

Raj flicked her epeé forward and bloodied the lad's ear in the space of a heart's beat. Galvus jumped backwards in disbelief, his hand at the ear that she'd nicked.

“Y-you... you cut me!” He shouted shrilly and the whole deck laughed at his deflated pride.

“Oi! You lame-footed oaf,” Mortimer jeered. “It's what you get for talkin', especially when you know I'm the better swordsman twinxt the two of us.”

“Then you fight her!” Galvus insisted, still pouting, and handed the saber to his comrade. Mortimer took it and Raj obligingly squared off with the lad, then in two steps she opened up the sleeve of his shirt and twisted the blade out of his grasp, picking it up with the toe of her boot.

“By the Light!” Mortimer exclaimed and then it was Galvus' turn to taunt.

“Not such a good swordsman after all,” he crowed but by then first mate Thunaraz decided that enough time had been taken from their chores and shooed both of the lads back to their duties while Valoria and Raj took up their swords again and settled into en'garde at one another.

A hard hour later they were both winded and sweaty but Raj had unwittingly won the admiration of the rest of Valoria's team, who were amazed to find that the slight woman was such a skilled dueler.

“Where in Azeroth did ye find her?” Fermir asked when Raj had collected her gear and was headed down to the bilge for a wash.

Valoria, her brow lined with sweat and her hair damp, shrugged. “She just flew through the window one night.”

 

Evenings aboard the Emeraldshard were the best by far, when everyone was tired and full from the buttery dinners served by the ship's cook, an elderly dwarf woman named Hilge. Because Captain Nyxiana had a strong interest in trading in ale, she had stored several barrels of good hardy dwarven brews for consumer trials and it quickly became a ritual for Fermir and Valoria to break into a cask at sundown. The crew and guests would gather on the main deck and Galvus and Mortimer would pull out their lute and lyre and before long the deck was filled with music and dancing, or at the very least the drunken bellowing of Khaz Modan ballads from Fermir, Hilge, and Thun. These Valoria joined in on as much as she was able and one night she even agreed to help the sailor lads with their swordplay. The two were close to hopeless but she was a patient tutor and did her best with them; she thought that they might be able to stand on their own two feet in a proper fight some day if they worked as hard at their fencing as they did at their pranks.

After everyone was exhausted from dancing and singing and all-around carrying on, the guests would make their way into the single-room berth and hang up their hammocks, while the Captain slept pretty in her own private cabin. First Mate Thunaraz would take the first watch and let the boys get some rest and Valoria would fall into her hammock without a care. Fermir's snores and Milo's tossing might have bothered her had she not had the foresight to fall-out a bit typsy but the warrior could never keep a good night's sleep when she was drunk and so she was up every morning with the dawn, ready to start all over again.

On the third day they hugged the coast eastwards into the green waters of Baradin Bay and that evening they could see Menethil Harbor sitting fat and happy in her protective quarter of the bay. Here, the mists from the sharp downward slope of the Khaz mountains covered the wetlands surrounding Menethil like a down blanket of white and it crept outwards into the bay with eery tendrils, as if seeking out ships to bring into its clutches. Galvus pointed the small harbor out to Valoria as they passed by but they did not sweep in for a rest, moving onwards instead for the north.

The Emeraldshard continued to stick close to the eastern coastline, skirting the shrouded islands of Kal Tiras and Tol Borad, of which little was known and even less was wanted. Finally, on the sixth day, they came into the tiny harbor of Southshore, in the northern cleft of Baradin Bay. Southshore was a quiet village in the Hillsbrad Foothills, the last beacon of the Alliance before entering into the diseased lands of the Forsaken. Once, it had been a thriving seaside town, supplying the nearby hub of Dalaran with its household goods and food and dealing with Lordaeron City and and the Kingdom of Alterac to the north. But when the capital city of Lordaeron fell to disease and betrayal, many of the outlying towns fell with it. Dalaran was secluded by the wizards for its own safety, though the details of how were little more than vague rumors, and Alterac was raised half to the ground after its betrayal of the Alliance of Lordaeron in the second war. Now, Southshore was half the size of its golden years, but it struggled on the best it could with enemy territory so close and soldiers so far away.

The foothills of Hillsbrad were quiet and serene, with tall pines and good farming soil, and despite their separation from the metropolis of Stormwind, the people of the village seemed content to Valoria's eyes.

The ship came into harbor around noon and it was greeted by friendly, if surprised, faces. The dock hand helped to moor the sloop in place and Nyxiana did not stiff him on the charge of keeping the ship, though he never asked her for the coin. Fermir, Ellona, Milo and Raj gathered their belongings and said their goodbyes to the crew with genuine amity but when Valoria shouldered her pack to follow the team onto the dock, Nyxiana caught her arm.

“Wait, V,” she said somberly and Valoria tilted her head at her, waiting. “I have to ask; why are you doing this?”

Valoria frowned. “I have my reasons, Nyx.”

“Damnit V, quit with this charlatan act of yours, wont you? It's me; you can be yourself.”

“I am being myself,” she pulled her arm from Nyx's grasp. “This is who I always was, and you would know that better than anyone. The only difference is now I have the freedom to actually _be_ myself.”

Nyxiana pursed her lips and tried a different tactic. “But don’t you miss him? You could find him, V, it wouldn’t be so hard-”

“He can find me, if and when he wants to,” Valoria cut her off with steely eyes and Nyxiana sighed, biting her tongue with effort. The Captain's unhappy expression softened Valoria's heart however and she shook her head. “Come then Nyx, isn’t this what you always wanted as well? A ship of your very own, the open sea? You love this life just as much as I do.”

Nyxiana looked up at the sails of the sloop, flapping lazily in the wind. “I do love it. But I'm also not forgetting where I came from,” she looked back at Valoria. “If you aren’t careful, you'll lose yourself.”

Valoria snorted and put a hand on her friend's shoulder. “I hope that I will,” she answered and then gave the Captain another of her awkward hugs. “I'll see you soon, Nyxiana,” she promised and turned to walk off the ship.

 

The inn in Southshore stood across from the courthouse, being the second most important building in the village. It was a two-story structure, built of heavy wooden beams in the classic Lordaeron style with a reaching gable rooftop and on the inside it was warm and clean. There was a wide common room scattered with tables and benches, with a staircase along the right wall leading to the rooms for rent upstairs. Valoria lead her team inside and pleased the middle-aged innkeeper, a man by the name of Anderson, by ordering five rooms for the night.

Innkeeper Anderson gladly obliged and handed over five keys, which Valoria passed out to her team. “Now then, I figure that tonight will be our last night of comfort for a while, so I want you lot to take it easy and get some rest.”

The team had been getting plenty of rest aboard the Emeraldshard but no one made mention of that and so they all dispersed, with Milo and Fermir off to explore the village, while Ellona went into her room to meditate. Valoria, who had had enough fresh air for a day, chose a table in the common room that looked inviting and brought out her deck of playcards, resting her feet up on one of the empty chairs. Without a word, Raj pulled out the seat across from her and sat down.

“Deal,” she said and Valoria passed her three cards.

“I hope you play cards better than you play at swords, otherwise I'm about to empty your pockets.”

“Sorry dove, but cards don’t take a heavy hand; they take subtlety and thoughtfulness, and here I've got you beat.”

Valoria laughed and picked up her cards: by the time that the tavern began to fill up that evening with fishermen and farmers alike, she owed Raj half the contents of her apartment.

 

Valoria finally threw down her hand at around nine o'clock that night, leaving the packed table of card players with far heavier pockets and begging her to stay the whole night long. Irritated at just how sorely she'd lost, she said a brief goodnight to her team members, reminding them that they'd be leaving early in the morning and warning to beat any heads she found still in bed by sunup, and then climbed the stairs to her room. The room was cozy, with a large clean bed and the fireplace already lit and crackling merrily. She scrubbed her face in the wash basin and was just stripping down to crawl into the covers when the bedroom door creaked quietly open and a figure stepped lightly through it, turning to lock it behind her.

When Raj leaned backwards against the door and looked at Valoria, the warrior felt her stomach clench. It was the smile that did it, a slight upturn at the corner of her mouth, both mischievous and sincere. It was completely different from _his_ smile, and Valoria supposed that was why she liked it so much; it didn’t make her think of him.

She grinned suddenly, unable to hold back her obvious affection for the thief, and Raj rushed at her, throwing her arms around her neck and pulling her face towards hers. Valoria was taller than Raj by a few inches and had to stoop somewhat to kiss her, but she chose to avoid that by maneuvering towards the bed, where they fell with ardent anticipation.

 

Afterward, when they were mutually satisfied and the passion that drove Valoria into a frenzied beast had been finally quieted, they lay in the dimming firelight staring up at the ceiling overhead in a pleasant daze. They hadn’t been truly alone together for weeks, and they hadn’t been intimate in over a month, but now Valoria finally felt comfortable enough to roll over and ask, “Why the fel are you here, Raj?”

Raj sighed, as if expecting the question. “I ask myself that as well. I should not have left the city, but damn me for a fool, I couldn’t get what you said out of my head. I've never left the Kingdom, V. I've hardly been as far as Lakeridge, and when you told me about this mission, it was if I lost all sense. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I never wanted to leave Stormwind as bad as when you told me that I could. Perhaps that's what it was, simply the opportunity; but I had to come.”

“You make it sound as though you might have made a mistake, though.”

Raj lay there silently for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, and then suddenly she rolled over and straddled Valoria's waist, her black hair falling down in her eyes and over her shoulders, the soft light of the fire making her olive skin glow amber. Looking up at her, Valoria thought she'd never been so beautiful.

“I'm a member of the Defias Brotherhood,” Raj said quietly.

Valoria stared at her, breathless. “Oh Makers.”

The Defias were a well known and highly feared crime syndicate which acted as a constant thorn in Stormwind's side, terrorizing villages and leading the majority of criminal operations in and out of the city. They were known for being ruthless, as well as clever, and their leader was idealized as a savior by the impoverished men and women who pledged their blades to him.

“I've been a part of the Brotherhood for most of my life, they were the only safe place I could find when my family passed. They trained me, and were friends to me. My captain was my mentor, he taught me everything I know. He died in a raid a year ago however, and I was put into a new band. The man who leads my band now is a gutless cur, but he's powerful and in very good with the Master. He's been hounding after me for this entire past year, and if it weren’t bad enough that he's such a cretin, the fact is that I cant stand the thought of lying with a man. I was becoming miserable because I knew I couldn’t leave my band; it wouldn’t be allowed, and even if I was able to convince another captain to take me, Yarvis would slit my throat for leaving him. He's threatened me enough for not sucking his cock.

I didn’t know what I could do about him, but when you told me about this venture, it was as if a door closed and another opened. It was a way out of the Defias grasp, you see. The operation doesn’t reach this far north, and with you leaving by a ship with no log in the middle the night, there was no one to know how and where I'd gone. You were my getaway.”

Valoria smirked. “And here I was thinking that you'd come along because you liked me.”

Raj leaned down and kissed Valoria's forehead. “I didn’t say that I didn’t.”

“But what now? The Brotherhood will notice you're gone, wont they come looking for you? And wont you miss them?”

“They'll look for me all right, but I'm not just one more bandit. I was trained by one of the most talented men in the Brotherhood, and I was his protege. The band I was assigned to under Yarvis was an elite unit; to say it simply, I am very good at what I do. I think that I can outrun anyone they send looking for me. And as for missing the Brotherhood...” she trailed off, thinking. “Well, most everyone I ever loved is already dead, and anyone who isn’t will want me dead now that I've gone awol. So I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”

Almost subconsciously, Valoria reached up and brushed the hair out of Raj's face, then trailed her fingers down her body, touching the smooth skin of Raj's chest, her stomach, her hips. Finally, she said, “I'm glad you've told me this. You're a member of my team now, that means that I'm looking out for you. You're my responsibility.”

“I don’t need a protector.”

“No, but you need family, and that's what this team is.”

Raj gazed down at her, taken aback. “Do you really think that?”

“I do. And you're stuck with us.”

The rogue grinned suddenly and shook her head at Valoria. “I don’t think that I've ever known anyone quite like you, V.”

“I'm going to take that as a compliment,” she yawned hugely and pulled Raj into her embrace, rolling over to wrap her arm around her waist. “Now I have to get some sleep, or I'll not have the temperance to deal with Milo in the morning.”

Raj smirked but said nothing and while Valoria slipped easily into dreams, Raj lay awake for a long time.

 

Southshore was a village of hard workers, and so it rose with the sun and Valoria was no exception, being awakened by the crowing of the roosters and the grumbling downstairs of townsfolk milling into the tavern for coffee and eggs. When she found Raj still in her bed she was surprised but pleased. She hadn’t woken up beside someone for a long time.

She rolled out of bed and cringed at how cold the air had turned once she'd let the fire die, and she was quick to dig out and pull on her silk undershirt and black silk trousers. Then she reached into her pack and began to pull out her new armor set, piece by piece. She lay them each out upon the floor for her to look over. Gingerly, she touched the seams and bolts, running her hands over the coolness of the chain mail and the admiring the blue sheen that rippled across the underside of the metal.

The warrior stood and pulled on the plate trousers first, which fell to just under her knee. She cinched the buckles and adjusted the straps and wondered, fascinated, at the quality of every chain. Next, she tugged on her boots, which were light but sturdy, with stitched-in greaves and plate-banded toes. Valoria noted that the boots overlapped the hem of the trousers to leave no part of her legs uncovered and she then lifted the chest piece over her head and locked it into place. This was the piece that had had to undergo the most work by her blacksmith, as it was originally built for a man and Valoria had a very un-manly figure. The chest piece had been worked to allow a curve for her breasts and a dip for her hips, and the collar came to a V around her neck. Having seen this flaw in the armor when worn by the late Kurzen, Valoria had suggested a slight modification and she attached a collar of chain mail wrapped in heavy leather. This she fitted beneath her armor and found that it was comfortable enough to not hinder the movement of her head but added some deflection to the armor's weak spot.

She pulled on her gauntlets, which were light and sturdy like her boots, and her single shoulder pauldron, which fitted over the top of her breastplate. Lastly she strapped on the emerald bejeweled girdle, which offered extra protection to her vulnerable midriff, and which also looked damned good, in her opinion. Raj woke up just in time to see the warrior standing in her full regalia, making minor adjustments to the buckles for comfort.

“By the Light,” she muttered, surprised at the transformation the armor made in her companion. The armor had a wicked, barbaric style to its curves and the layers of the plate, and the color was a wild greenish gray that was unlike any armor she'd seen before. That it was magnificent, anyone with sense could tell, but it was strangely intimidating as well.

“'Tis my new suit,” Valoria said with pride. “I cant hardly wait to put it to the test.”

Raj nodded absently, still looking at the armor, and a harsh knocking at the door startled them both.

“Oi, get a move on lass, I want to be on the road in the hour!” Fermir's voice sounded at her and Valoria rolled her eyes.

“I thought I was running this venture,” she grumbled and turned to braid back her hair while Raj sleepily climbed out of bed to get her own gear together.

 

A half hour later and the team was assembled in the common room, digging into the last warm meal that Valoria expected to eat for a bit. The five talked very little, being more focused on their coffee than idle chat, and Valoria finally decided that they needn’t stuff themselves too hardily before a long march and stood as signal that it was time to be off. They paid the innkeeper, whose wife had won some of Valoria's money the night before and who was very eager to have his guests return some day soon, and then stepped out into the crisp morning.

“That's a fine suit of armor, Lori,” Milo pipped up as they turned up the north road out of the town, entering into the farm fields of Hillsbrad. The temperature was low but the sky was clear and Valoria expected the day would warm with the sun.

“Thank you, Milo, but you don’t recognize it do you?”

The gnome shook his head that he didn’t and Valoria rolled her eyes.

“She stole it off a dead man,” Fermir explained with obvious distaste.

“A dead man? How cruel!” Milo whispered, aghast.

Valoria sucked her teeth. “There's no shame in it, it would have been a damn waste of good armor to let to be burned and buried. And before you go on with airs, Master Temperspark, that staff of yours and that hat both belonged to a dead man, so keep that in mind next time you're judging my suit.”

The thought that his gifts from Valoria were inherited had never occurred to the wizard, and he gazed at his staff sullenly. Shortly, the road that they were on ended in an abrupt 'T' and Valoria took the westward path.

“Do you still plan to take us past Dalaran?” Ellona questioned when the two of them were a few paces ahead of the rest.

“Aye, 'tis what we agreed on, yes?”

Ellona shrugged. “I suppose. But leaving the road puts me on edge.”

Valoria shook her head. “Staying to the road is what puts me on edge. It's more likely we'll come across an enemy patrol on the road, and at least in the forest we'll have some cover.”

“Or we'll fall into a trap,” Ellona pointed out and Valoria side-eyed her.

“I see you're becoming shrewd in your experience. Once we leave the road, Raj will take point, its what she's come for.”

“Indeed? Speaking of our new comrade,” and Ellona lowered her voice. “Fermir told me he didn’t find our scout in her room this morning when he made his rounds to wake us.”

“Hmm.”

“In fact, I don’t really recall when she went off to bed last night. She must have slipped out when no one was looking.”

“Well, isn’t that a rogue for you,” Valoria answered mildly. Ellona snorted and dropped the subject.


End file.
